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Sleep No More

 
Album Review: Sleep No More
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Sleep No More

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Empires and Dance, Waiting for a Miracle, Violent Femmes, Tubeway Army, Speak & Spell, Secondhand Daylight, Dirk Wears White Sox, Systems of Romance, Ivan Smagghe Presents Death Disco, Reproduction

Review

Sleep No More, the second Comsat Angels album, is a confident follow-up that contains a tighter and more cutting version of Waiting for a Miracle's alluring insularity. Going by "Eye Dance," the torrid opener, one might expect a more aggressive affair, but that's not necessarily the case. The album turns out to be neither as pop nor as fast, with a majority of the material playing out at a dirge-like pace. There were no singles. Like Magazine's Secondhand Daylight, or the Sound's All Fall Down, Sleep No More can be a trudge and quite bleak, perhaps even impenetrable at times. However, as with Waiting for a Miracle, the dynamics of the album become increasingly perceptible with each play, and the slowest, austerest passages begin to seem as intense as the few that slam and punch. With the exception of "Restless," a mood piece of harmonic flickers, light whispers, and low throb, the album is driven by Mik Glaisher's booming drums, which were recorded in a manner -- near a lift shaft, to be precise, with microphones placed on six surrounding floors -- that makes the album wholly enveloping and, occasionally, imposing. (Imagine Joy Division's "I Remember Nothing" and Talking Heads' "The Overload" on top of one another, doubled in heaviness.) The subject matter: not a big surprise, given the title of the album, with further adventures in malfunctioning-relationship purgatory, along with topical matter like "Dark Parade" (about the volatile hostage situation at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), a song that hardly repeals the level of turmoil expressed elsewhere. Regardless of the continued strength in the songwriting, it's impossible not to get caught up in the album's sounds. The title track overwhelms with its swirling layers of guitar and keyboards over an unchanging drum pattern. The storming "Goat of the West" wastes no time in whipping itself into a controlled frenzy of churning guitars, punishing drums, and bewildered vocals ("Did you see what happened?/It's so funny that I'm not laughing"). On "At Sea," the rhythm section does the riffing, with Glaisher's thumping drums suctioned to Kevin Bacon's cavernous bass. While it's not as easy to enjoy as Waiting for a Miracle -- for a lot of listeners, it's that kind of album that requires some mental preparation -- Sleep No More is certainly more powerful, and it's also a greater achievement. Here, the Comsat Angels became one of the era's most exceptional bands. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Eye Dance The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Sleep No More The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Be Brave The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Gone The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Dark Parade The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Diagram The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Restless The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Goat of the West The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Light Years The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels
Our Secret The Comsat Angels The Comsat Angels

Credits

Jack Rabid (Liner Notes), Mik Glaisher (Drums), Simon Robinson (Liner Notes), Stephen Fellows (Guitar), Andy Peake (Vocals), Andy Peake (Keyboards), Pete Wilson (Producer), Stephen Fellows (Vocals), Kevin Bacon (Bass), Artwork (Sleeve Design), Stephen Fellows (Illustrations)
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Wikipedia: Sleep No More (album)
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Sleep No More
Studio album by Comsat Angels
Released September, 1981
Genre Post-punk
Length 38:19 (LP)
Label Polydor
Producer Peter Wilson and The Comsat Angels
Professional reviews
Comsat Angels chronology
Waiting for a Miracle
(1980)		 Sleep No More
(1981)		 Fiction
(1982)

Sleep No More was released in September 1981 on Polydor Records. It was the Comsat Angels' second album and is widely regarded as a masterpiece that had a major influence on bands such as U2 (who toured with the band) and latterly Editors and Interpol. The album was reissued on CD twice, in 1995 by RPM Records and in 2006 by Renascent, with different track listings (see below). Sleep No More produced no singles, but it had the highest UK chart ranking for any Comsat album, peaking at #51.[1]

After the rushed production of the first album, Waiting for a Miracle, the band was able to put a lot more craft into Sleep No More. Frontman Steve Fellows described how they achieved a resonant sound on a couple of the tracks: "Pete Wilson suggested taking the drums out of the studio – on the fourth floor at Polydor – and putting them near the lift-shaft (elevator shaft) by the stairs. We then put microphones on the three floors above and below....Obviously we were only able to do this sort of thing in the evening when the offices were closed!"[2]

Fellows felt the album Sleep No More had a unique quality amongst the band's work. "The only [album] which had a 'thread' through it was Sleep No More, the 'thread' was the sound we wanted to get."[3] Critics recognized it as a great follow-up to Waiting For a Miracle. Allmusic has this to say, "Sleep No More is certainly more powerful, and it's also a greater achievement. Here the Comsat Angels became one of the era's exceptional bands."[4] Mark Cooper of Sounds magazine wrote in a 1981 review that it was "an album that is head and shoulders above anything else recorded this year."[5] And Jack Rabid of Big Takeover magazine summed up the album by saying, "I think Sleep No More is one of the greatest pieces of music ever released!"[6]

When Sleep No More was released, it sold out very quickly. Unfortunately Polydor took two weeks to ship additional stock to the record stores, which some felt killed the album's momentum.[7]

Contents

Track listing (1981)

All tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake

  1. Eye Dance
  2. Sleep No More
  3. Be Brave
  4. Gone
  5. Dark Parade
  6. Diagram
  7. Restless
  8. Goat of the West
  9. Light Years
  10. Our Secret

Track listing (1995)

All tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake

  1. Eye Dance
  2. Sleep No More
  3. Be Brave
  4. Gone
  5. Dark Parade
  6. Diagram
  7. Restless
  8. Goat of the West
  9. Light Years
  10. Our Secret
  11. Eye of the Lens
  12. Another World
  13. At Sea
  14. (Do the) Empty House
  15. Red Planet Revisited

Track listing (2006)

All tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake

  1. Eye Dance
  2. Sleep No More
  3. Be Brave
  4. Gone
  5. Dark Parade
  6. Diagram
  7. Restless
  8. Goat of the West
  9. Light Years
  10. Our Secret
  11. Eye of the Lens
  12. Another World
  13. At Sea
  14. Mass
  15. Dark Parade 1 (demo)
  16. Goat Of The West (demo)
  17. Be Brave (demo)
  18. Gone (demo)

Personnel

References

  1. ^ Sleeve notes from Renascent re-issue of Sleep No More
  2. ^ Sleeve notes from Renascent re-issue of Sleep No More
  3. ^ Step Off, interviews, Stephen Fellows Q & A Session May 2002 [1]
  4. ^ Allmusic review of Sleep No More [2]
  5. ^ Sleeve notes from Renascent re-issue of Sleep No More
  6. ^ Springhouse forum, comment posted by Jack Rabid, December 9, 1997[3]
  7. ^ Sleeve notes from Renascent re-issue of Sleep No More

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Album Review. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sleep No More (album)".  Read more

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