Thread for the Comsat Angels reissues in early 2006

I hope I won't be such a sucker that I'll re-buy these. But I probably will, except for 'Time Considered'.

Sheffield band Comsat Angels have forever lingered under the shadow of contemporaries like Joy Division and The Cure. With these lovingly packaged reissues by UK label Renascent, their reputation as a unique, brilliant band can be promoted in a way that the label did with the similarly great The Sound. Culling their name from a short story by J.G. Ballard, Comsat Angels formed in 1978. They got a quick education early on by being blown away at a gig with Pere Ubu. They learned they could be arty and simple at the same time, emphasizing uncontrived power over complexity. Using Pere Ubu, Chrome, Television, Talking Heads' Fear Of Music and Public Image Ltd. as spiritual guidance, the band develped the set that was to become Waiting For A Miracle. It's a remarkable debut with a spare sound that's clean yet hits hard. Stephen Fellow sings his lyrics of paranoia and romantic decay in a strong English accent, ensuring they don't overtly sound like any of their influences. "Total War" is a riveting statement of mutual disgust as it lurches, constantly on the verge of a smack but holding back. The title track features an awesomely heavy bass sound, while "Independence Day" is the band's biggest single, and one of their most distinct statements. Ironically, they were compared to Joy Division, even though they claim not to have heard them until completing their first album. Either way, Waiting For A Miracle measures up to the best of that year's post-punk efforts by Joy Division, The Associates, The Cure, Magazine, The Sound, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and Simple Minds.

Sleep No More shows off the confidence and experience Comsat Angels have earned on the road by hitting hard from the start with the dense, thick "The Eye Dance." The few tentative weaknesses in the previous album's songwriting has evaporated. This album is as tight, cold and hard as titanium. The opening track sounds spritely compared to the glaciar pace of most of the album. Ths results in a flow that is not as accessible as their first album, but once drawn in, the soundscapes created on each cut is truly awesome, from "Be Brave" to the ominous "Dark Parade," which recounts the botched attempt of American Special Forces to rescue hostages in the embassy of Iran. The drums have a massive, cavernous sound that left engineers of that era scratching their heads as to how it was done (secrets revealed in the booklet). "Restless" offers some brief relief from the relentless intensity with a pretty, shimmering sound that sounds remarkably what U2 and Brian Eno would come up with a few years later. The Angels toured with U2 at that time, and Bono was impressed by their "terrible beauty." Despite the fact that it's The Comsat Angels' peak moment, and the best album of 1981, no singles were issued from the album. The band issued a separate single, "Eye of the Lens," which is included along with extra demos.

Rather than try to top their oppressively heavy masterpiece, the band lightened up a bit on 1982's Fiction, starting with the glimmering lead track "After The Rain," which would anticipate the sophisticated pop sound of many British bands in following years, including fellow Sheffield natives Human League and ABC. While it may foreshadow the band's decline, in itself it's one of their best songs. Another highlight is "Pictures," featuring a gently jazzy solo, recalling the delicate sensibilities of contemporaries Japan. Fiction may not be as consistent or as powerful as the first two album, but it still has many breathtaking moments, and towers above the Comsats work later in the decade.

Even though I was a bit underwhelmed with it when it got reissued about a decade ago, the expanded edition of the Glamour is really fantastic.

It is! There's some great tracks included that weren't on the original release like "I Hear A New World" and "Goddess". I still prefer the original running order but the extra material makes an excellent bonus disc.

The two disc version is the only version I've ever known. Looking at the original tracklisting now, they left off the best songs!

Well, the original release apparently was either rushed or released before final band approval.

hello myself and gerald from a while back! here's that jam because it's better than ever, friends-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Nkp1peRJE
"i hear a new world" (1995)

hi, on a bit of a comsats tangent the past couple days.

this non-album single is so good. did they ever get any credit for the good pop stuff they did? because this one... yeah, this is the sort of thing i like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFl34ZYU_no
"it's history" (1982)

wonderful introspective strummer. he doesn't have a showy voice either, so sing along. you'll sound great!

i always found the correlation between sleep no more and fiction pretty neat-- steve fellows was writing about a lot of really depressive stuff on sleep no more. and then, like all folks who move past (or at least try to move past) their darkness, he starts writing about the general topic of 'letting go' a few times in the fiction era. "it's history" was an a-side, too. it's certainly poppier than what came before, but it is still very melodramatic, isn't it? that explains why i like it.

Definitely one of my favorite B-Sides of theirs. Sadly, I think the Comsats will be lost to history despite the reissues.

would totally buy a 10 CD complete recordings thing if cherry red or somebody similar were to go for it!

Sleep No More is dark and heavy but I don't find it depressive in the way that say contemporaneous material from The Cure feels - there's an abstraction to their attack which is perhaps halfway between that and Wire - e.g. the way that "Gone" builds to that overwhelming chorus and suddenly ends, and you realise that the build was the song's entire point. There's a sense of intense focus more than anything else.

It's instructive to compare the album's material to the surrounding singles "Eye of the Lens" (slightly before) and "(Do The) Empty House" (slightly after) - stylistically the work of the same band but "lighter" not in terms of subject matter so much as in literal weight.

That doesn't take away from the point above about the Fiction era stuff which definitely feels like a further sloughing off.

excellent points, tim. i meant depressive in a _very_ general way. like, just consider the sound of it and the topics of the songs--- not exactly uplifting music.

and "(do the) empty house" is one of my favorite songs ever. it's like xtc on a joy division bender. and that chorus! i don't even have to hear the song to get it stuck in my head. in fact, it's usually the opposite: my brain brings it up and i have to seek it out. very big tune.

When I was DJ’ing, every time I played “It’s History” someone asked me about it. One of those b-sides that should have been a-sides cases I suppose. Repeating my recommendation for Stephen Fellows’ 2020 solo album

7 Day Weekend is astonishingly underrated. Based on the cover shot, you’d think that Arista somehow got them to sound like Duran Duran, and it is a bit poppier, but the songwriting is still ace

Honestly, none of their blind are subpar. Not even the Dream Command LP

'Sleep No More' remains my favorite of their albums.

But as for "letting go," trying to be post-depression songs, "After The Rain" is pretty high up there despite its seeming earnestness. Wish there were more Glass-infused post-punk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU4I7oh17f8

There is no best of or singles comp that could serve as a nice introduction.

Steve Fellows solo album is good but he put out over a dozen tracks on MySpace back in the day that haven't seen the light of day since. Email me at geraldmcbb at h0tmail.c0m for a copy.

my mind's eye jams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV6BBvet4EU
"driving" (1992)

lost 90s altrock classic. absolute shame that their discography is succumbing to media erosion. those early albums will never get old. their "bad" albums aren't even that bad. the 90s stuff feels transcendent by now; if my mind's eye was made by anyone else, it'd at least be a cult classic. 4.5 mics.

kinda wanna do a comsats albums poll, but i don't know what kinda turnout there'd be. anybody interested?

Yeah, a lost classic, that one.

would be really tough to pick between the first three tbh

i neglected their post-fiction albums for way too long, they are much better than i had been lead to believe!