The Sound: Shock Of Daylight 1984 + Heads And Hearts 1985

 

The Sound's inability to break through to the type of '80s post-punk prominence reserved for the likes

of Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen, the two bands the Sound fell in between sound-wise, isn't all that easy to explain away. When a deserving band fails at to become something of a household name, the easy targets -- the industry, the press, the drug problems, the coke-head producer who mangled what was supposed to be the "Big Record" -- are normally fingered.
                                                                                                                  

But none of those targets truly apply here in the strictest sense. While most of the Sound's records weren't released in the U.S., no American record executive can take any blame; they can simply point to the fact that the Sound were merely respectable unit shifters -- a prototypical cult act -- in their homeland of England, so they wouldn't have fared well across the pond.
                                                                                              

The press was generally supportive, especially early on; collectively they gave the band more positive reviews than most others, which makes perfect sense because none of the Sound's five studio LPs suffered from uneven characteristics. Each one made progress from the previous and each one ranged from good to spectacular.
                                                                                         

Their songs had hooks and emotional impact without bombast, with lyrics that often confronted the

problems of young adulthood without simply moping and falling into escapist chutes. The members themselves weren't cute teen idol types (though they were far from being tough on the eye), and they didn't have big personalities or say big things during interviews, but that's obviously no fault of their own.
                                                                               

They were able to cultivate large followings in Germany and Holland, but aside from those countries and a couple other European territories, indifference and history has made them all but invisible.
By Andy Kellman

                              

Label: Renascent ?– REN CD 1
Format: CD, Compilation, Remastered
Country: UK
Released: 1996
Genre: Rock
Style:
New Wave, Post-Punk, Dark Wave

SHOCK OF DAYLIGHT   1984

                                                                                        

01. Golden Soldiers     3:18
02. Longest Days     5:09
03. Counting The Days     3:36
04. Winter     4:19
05. A New Way Of Life     4:39
06. Dreams Then Plans     4:06

HEADS AND HEARTS   1985

                                                                                    

07. Whirlpool     4:02
08. Total Recall     4:31
09. Under You     4:20
10. Burning Part Of Me     3:27
11. Love Is Not A Ghost 4:16
12. Wildest Dreams     5:13
13. One Thousand Reasons 3:04
14. Restless Time     3:38
15. Mining For Heart     2:47
16. World As It Is     2:11
17. Temperature Drop     4:22

BONUS TRACKS    

18.     Blood And Poison   3:23
19.     Steel Your Air   3:37

                                                                                            

MEMBERS

Bass – Graham Bailey
Drums, Percussion – Michael Dudley
Keyboards – Colvin Mayers
Producer – Pat Collier (tracks: 1 to 6), Wally Brill (tracks: 7 to 17)
Saxophone – Ian Nelson
Trumpet – Sarah Smith (2), Tim Smith
Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards – Adrian Borland

Notes
Digitally remastered compilation reissue of the albums "Shock Of Daylight" (1984, tracks 1 to 6) and "Heads And Hearts" (1985, tracks 7 to 17) with two bonus tracks (18 and 19) which were previously released as B-sides on the "One Thousand Reasons" 12".

These two albums had not been previously issued together as a single compiled release.

"Shock Of Daylight" produced at Townhouse 3, January 1984.
"Heads And Hearts" produced at Townhouse 3, November 1984.
"Blood And Poison"/"Steel Your Air" produced at Silo, July 1984.

MP3 @ 320 Size: 170 MB
Flac  Size: 473 MB

BLOOD AND POISON  LYRICS

 

There is
good in all of us
There is beauty in all things
But when the sense of this is lost
We begin our poisoning
Words are weapons, words are swords
We use to cut each other down
Are we only happy when we're lord
And we can watch the lowly kiss our ground?

And he won't talk to me so the silence is set
And she won't sing for me, only one sad lament
Poison is seeping through into the essence we kept
Revenge pours on revenge
And as the blood drains away
It's the poison that stays corrupting the veins

And we take something from the sky
And we grind it into dirt
And then we wonder where it's gone
Then we wonder what we've done
What went wrong?

The Sound albums on Urban Aspirines HERE