Customer Reviews

Waiting for a Miracle

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With today's post punk revival, many unknown albums of the 80's are being reissued and reevaluated. The Comsat Angels are more than worthy of this recognition. Its hard to describe Waiting for a Miracle in exact terms. It is obviously inspired by Joy Division or early Echo and the Bunnymen but more slowed down and atmospheric. Think "17 Seconds" era Cure but depressing rather than nihilistic. The band, the Sound has also garnered some attention but the Comsats were more subtle and unnerving. The Comsat Angels were a cult favorite of the time and often toured with U2, who picked up some of their ideas. However, unlike U2, the Comsat Angels are not political. Their world is that of existential dread. Their second album Sleep No More is also worth picking up but eventually they became a derivative new wave band. However, when their ideas were focused as on Waiting for a Miracle, they captured the climate of the times as successfully as other, more famous bands. Get this album before it goes out of print again.

If you aren't familiar with this album, imagine a less relentless, subtler Joy Division. This is, in my estimation, the finest, most chilling post-punk record in existance. They don't hit you over the head with existential gloom...they merely snake around it.

Fans of early 80's British new-wave ie. Chameleons, Echo and the Bunnymen or The Sound would be doing themselves a tremendous dis-service not owning this albums. Renascent UK has done a wonderful job with the new liner notes.

"Sleep No More" may be a "better" album, but I find it a bit too self-consciously dour (but still absolutely brilliant...). All four Renascent UK reissues are requisite as far as I'm conserned, but this is the one I would have to choose if absolutely forced to.

Fans of The Sound, Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Psychedelic Furs first LP, and maybe even Joy Division should give a listen. While living in the UK in the late 70's I considered The Comsat Angels to be a great singles band. While "Red Planet" doesn't appear here, pre Polydor I guess, "Independence Day" and "Total War" fit in well as part of their first full length effort. This music represents a fine era in rock music. Headiness, great songs, lyrics that say something, and of course drums, bass, and guitars. I reviewed this because I feel it is an important recording.

I had the pleasure to wander into a concert by the Comsats about the time that Waiting for a Miracle came out. I was working in Greece and visiting a friend in London. It was an afternoon concert at the Lyceum with about 6 groups on the bill. When the Comsats came on, both of us looked at each other with that "these guys are really good, I mean really good" look on our faces. Miracle was sparse and wonderful, followed by the amazing Sleep No More, which is the one I play for friends who have never heard of the Comsats first. Living in Europe I got to see them a few times and socialize with them when they did a (honest) July 4 gig in an outdoor venue in Holland. This is the band that U2 was the opening act for when they were just getting going, and I do hear a lot of the Comsats in U2. Though to my mind, Stephen Fellows has a superior voice. Pity that the band didn't get the kind of success that U2 got, as that would mean they would still be together and turning out amazing music.

As I said, Miracle is very sparse and in this day and age may be a bit of an acquired taste. But, I always thought how incredible On The Beach would sound in the hands of a great soul singer with a full wall of sound production.

As Stephen Fellows would have said:

"See You in the Future"

Jay

One of the most overlooked bands of all time, the Comsat Angels, made their brilliant debut with the album Waiting For A Miracle. Listening to it takes me back to the fresh spontaneity of live bands of the late 1970s, before music evolved into being over-polished and over-synthesized. It is pure and sparse and (for me) quite enjoyable in 2006. There are some amazing tunes here, especially Missing In Action, Real Story and the Comsats' best known song, Independence Day. As with all of the Renascent re-releases, this one has a number of bonus tracks and slick little booklet which gives the early history of the band and album synopsis. They don't make albums like this anymore. Luckily, they re-release them. Don't pass it up!

I consider this album to be one of the best post-punk albums of all. The production is superb, Steven Fellows' vocals are distinctive and original, the songs are great, superb drumming from Mick Glashier. In '86, I saw a small ad in the Dallas newspaper, and thought "Could this be THE Comsat Angels?" I went down to the 500 club, and sure enough, it was them. I brought all my LPs in for them to autograph. I was kinda drunk, but Steven Fellows was very gracious. "Are we glad to see you!" they told me as I passed around the lps. Apparently not many people had showed up for this gig. I couldn't believe it, as I already worshipped them. The opening track "Missing In Action" is the best album intro of all time. "Total War" is so good, with futuristic synth explosions. They have a unique harmonic-chiming guitar style that foreshadows later atmospheric styles of rock. Later in their career, Robert Palmer produced them. He heard what I heard, a fantastically original band. Nice Farfisa-type organ and non-clichéd synth throughout. "Independence Day", another great. "Waiting For a Miracle" and "Baby" are great songs, too. This is one of the GREAT overlooked bands of all time. I know they toured and worked hard and it's time they got some recognition. There must be something about those industrial towns like Sheffield that produce great bands and great art. Dallas, you missed it. Their back catalog is now available on Renascent. Two of my all-time favorite songs are "Eye Of The Lens" and "It's History", which are on other releases. One of my very favorite bands of all time. Try it out.

I only recently discovered the Comsat Angels. I was obsessed with post-punk in the early 80's and relished the Damned, Stranglers, Gang of Four, Stiff Little Fingers, Chameleons, and perhaps my favorite, the Snake Corps, who blended goth and pop with anthemic drive. The Comsat Angels are right there. At once dark/dreary and persevering/melodic with touches of art rock. Waiting for a Miracle will delight you in ways you won't expect. From the opening surprise focus of Missing in Action to the sing along aspects of Independence Day (later redone even more anthemically in '83 on Land). I have their first 6 albums now and they are all good. This album and Land are currently my faves as they capture different aspects of the band in great ways.

Like most of their post-punk contemporaries, The Comsat Angels started with minimal instrumentation and production, as required by the punk aesthetic, but slowed down the tempos and added a dark atmosphere with serious, foreboding lyrics. From there they had a turn with goth, by making their music even slower and darker while improving the production, and then they changed course once again and wrote an all-out pop album with short radio-friendly songs. This was not an uncommon evolution at the time -- The Cure did basically the same thing -- but the Comsat Angels just never were able to break into the mainstream. Life isn't fair.

But now their first three albums have been reissued, after being out of print for two decades, and it's time to re-evaluate them. Waiting For A Miracle is first in the trilogy, and it's probably even more minimal than most of the other post-punk debuts. There is almost no guitar on the whole album. In fact, there are almost no riffs or hooks as such. Almost all of the songs are driven by repetitive, rudimentary rhythms and the occasional keyboard. "Independence Day" is the only song that has a clear guitar lead like a typical rock song.

At times, it really sounds like they've just taught themselves how to play. Many songs have a fragmented, jerky quality to them, with abrupt changes in the rhythm. "Monkey Pilot" especially sounds like it was pieced together from three different demos. The refrain that opens the song stops abruptly and goes into a long plodding section, which goes back to the refrain just as suddenly. "Real Story" is one of the few songs to have a recognizable guitar line, but that guitar line isn't really the sort of catchy hook that people put in pop songs. There's a very uncertain pause after every time it repeats, as if it doesn't really fit the rhythm, and the very notes sound like something one might write if one wants to write a guitar song but has never played the guitar.

But in some sense, this extreme minimalism suits the album. The lyrics often share this uncertain quality, and exhibit a kind of charming naivete. The title track is about how singer Stephen Fellows feels lonely at a dance, and wishes that a girl he likes would notice him. "Total War" laments his estrangement from his girlfriend, which occurs because she doesn't like his friends or his clothes. It's a banal reason, but hey, life is that way. These particular lyrics convey the mood by capturing small but realistic details. Fellows is much less successful when he tries to adopt a confident, world-weary air, like in "Map Of The World," where he tries to use a map as a metaphor for the insignificance of all human life. This very laboured observation comes across as shallow rather than experienced and wise.

The band's strength is not in the music and songwriting. But they're very good with simple chant-like lyrics. The music and lyrics of "Baby" are pretty forgettable, but there's one part after the second verse where Fellows softly chants "talk...talk...talk" and it has a powerful effect. "Waiting For A Miracle" does a similar thing in the ending, where Fellows repeats "waiting for a miracle, but nothing ever happens" in a rueful voice. It just so happens that this device evokes exactly the kind of bleak, repetitive setting that the lyrics refer to. Fellows doesn't make a show of emoting by screaming or sighing or what-not, and this understated singing style can make these simple chants compelling and meaningful.

And then there's "Independence Day," which is a truly great post-punk song and by far the best track on the album. It's the only song with a real guitar hook. Though just as minimal as the rest of the music, the notes are punctuated by pauses so precisely that it sounds nervous and tight, rather than uncertain like the other songs. The build-up of drums, which start calmly and proceed to thunder by the very end, is also very strong. And Fellows contributes a fine lyric, with the memorable refrain, "I can't relax because I haven't done a thing, and I can't do a thing because I can't relax." To this day, this is the Comsat Angels' sole charting single, though they recorded a few more good ones later on.

The reissue adds eight bonus tracks. The four demos are bland except for the version of "Independence Day," which uses feedback to make the guitar line sound soft and sad rather than nervous. Of the B-sides, "Home Is The Range" exhibits all of the band's weaknesses: they try to write a fast and energetic song, but there's clearly no tune to it, and the drums just crash along monotonously. But "We Were" is a moody instrumental, with a more expansive, "cathedral-like" sound, and adds some variety to the album. And the last two out-takes, "Ju Ju Money" and "Work," are excellent, better than half the songs on the album itself. "Ju Ju Money" was later reworked for the band's third album, where it was given a much richer production with layered guitars. But this version may be even better, precisely because it's so sparse. The best part is after the vocals, when the bass line repeats over and over, and the guitar occasionally interjects with a single note. This extended outro creates a genuine sense of unease and mystery, which the band was trying to create with mixed success throughout the whole album. And "Work" has quite possibly the album's best lyric, written from the perspective of the real young man struggling to support himself, rather than the rock poet.

Waiting For A Miracle is not exactly a lost classic, but the band's youthful earnestness, and their inability to fake an experienced image, do grow on one. Their other albums don't have this quality. And the bonus tracks show that they had talent.