Alarm - The Princes of Wales

The worst disservice you can do to the Alarm is to call them "the Welsh U2". Yet that's exactly what's happened, time and again, from the start (when the even nastier version doesn't prevail instead, branding them "a lesser, loser U2", a jab at the gap in appeal and chart fortunes).

Let's be clear: the problem isn't the comparison with one of the greatest bands of all time. If anything, what truly undersells Mike Peters and co.'s story is the lingering suspicion of plagiarism or slavish imitation. Beyond the undeniable points of contact with Bono & co. (the pathos, the epic attitude, the spiritual tension), the Alarm's trajectory unfolds on its own terms, with traits of real originality, starting with their pioneering use of acoustic guitars, and ending with their bilingual approach to lyrics: they were the first Welsh band to sing in both Welsh and English, influencing, for instance, the far more celebrated Super Furry Animals. What's more, perhaps precisely because they knew they couldn't rely on rock-star looks, they managed to build a sincere, special bond with their fans, one that earned them undying loyalty. As Gianni Sibilla writes, "the Alarm perfectly embody that romantic ideal which has struck generations of rock listeners: the song as a spontaneous, direct means of communication, free of industry mediation".

But let's take things in order, starting strictly from Rhyl, a seaside town in Denbighshire, on the north-east coast of Wales.

Punk in the Toilets

What can you do in Rhyl in 1977, if you're a teenager bored of spending your evenings at the pub, pint after pint? Maybe you start a punk band, thinks young Mike Peters, who picks the alias Eddie Bop and takes charge of an outfit called The Toilets. Also on board are Glyn Crossley (aka Steve Shock), Richard "O'Malley" Jones (aka Bo Larks) and Nigel Buckle (aka Des Troy). But the experience runs its course within a year, and by 1978 it's already time for Seventeen, a new group led by the Peters-Buckle duo, which brings in Eddie Macdonald (Peters' neighbour on Edward Henry Street) and, later, guitarist David Kitchingman (alias Dave Sharp). The band releases a power-pop single ("Don't Let Go"/"Bank Holiday Weekend") in March 1980 and opens on tour for the Stray Cats. The four are founding members of the Gallery, one of Rhyl's best-loved underground venues: it's here that they become a local sensation under a new name, taken from the title of the first song they ever played live: "Alarm Alarm". Suitably shortened to "The Alarm", it would become the perfect banner for an exciting new musical adventure.

A simple wooden cross,

It had no epitaph engraved

Come on down and meet your maker

Come on down and make the stand

(“The Stand”)

The new Alarm – with Buckle now going by Twist – officially debut on 6 June 1981 with a gig at the Victoria Hotel in Prestatyn, a few miles from their native Rhyl. The set opens with the notes of a hypnotic rock liturgy, driven by a dark, pounding bassline: it's called "Shout To The Devil" and will become one of the heavy hitters on their debut album, Declaration, though it would still be three years before that record saw the light of day. First, there's a bit more road to be travelled.

Having relocated to London, the Alarm release a double-sided single, pairing the electric "Unsafe Building" with the acoustic "Up For Murder". It passes largely unnoticed, save for an enthusiastic review in ZigZag magazine. More significant, perhaps, are the show alongside the Fall (December 1981), which earns them the attention of Sounds magazine, and the support slots for the Jam, the Beat and the Boomtown Rats. The Alarm's name starts to do the rounds among industry insiders: after a performance at the Ronnie, they meet a Wasted Talent label rep, who puts them in touch with Ian Wilson. No ordinary figure: the manager of U2, at the time still a long way from stardom, but already destined for the big leagues. Struck by the Welsh band's live power, Wilson falls for them instantly. He becomes their manager and immediately sets up a show alongside U2 at the Lyceum Ballroom. It's 22 December 1981, a date that can be marked, depending on how you look at it, as the official start of the Alarm's saga, or as the beginning of the "curse" that would forever see them cast in U2's shadow, Bono and co. always one step ahead.

After another round of demos and auditions, Alarm land at Irs (the label behind the first five Rem albums), which nonetheless forces a reshuffle of the line-up, at the time featuring no fewer than three acoustic guitarists. So Peters dedicates himself solely to singing, while Sharp picks up the guitar, with Macdonald on bass. With this line-up they record the single "Marching On", a catchy folk-rock number with a Springsteen-esque swagger, which quickly becomes one of their most beloved live staples, where they are still often found sharing bills with U2.

But it's another single that opens the doors of success for Alarm, even on the other side of the Atlantic. It's called "The Stand" and, curiously, it's the very first song ever inspired by a Stephen King novel. Perhaps that's partly why America falls for this passionate ode, driven by the unmistakable Alarm rhythm section, almost martial in its epic stride, wrapped around Peters' fervent vocals and an effective, folk-leaning melody.

"The Stand" also becomes the centerpiece of the 5-track Alarm Ep of the same name, which is followed by their first American tour in June 1983, once again opening for U2, who were on the road promoting "War". The Welsh band's sound is still raw and unpolished, but already hints at an urgency borrowed from the most politicized strain of punk (Clash chief among them) and from Celtic-rooted folk. With some degree of oversimplification, though, they get lumped in with the Mod revival scene.

Sixty-eight Guns will never die

Sixty-eight Guns our battle cry

(“Sixty Eight Guns”)

Declaration of Intent

The time is finally ripe for the Welsh band's debut album, entrusted to producer Alan Shacklock. The appetizer is "Sixty Eight Guns", a charging single that marries the punk fury of the Clash to an epic sweep worthy of the best British folk, with lyrics Peters drew from a book about 1960s Glasgow gangs. Helped along by a Top of the Pops appearance, the single climbs the British Top 20, peaking at No. 17 (it will remain their highest-charting single).

By the time the Lp Declaration came out in February 1984, Alarm were no longer rookies, but a band with a solid reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Credit also goes to an endless string of live shows, culminating in a standout gig supporting Police. The fact is that, within a week of release, Declaration shot straight to No. 6 on the Uk Chart and also crossed into the American Top 50.

After all, rather than a true debut album, this is really a collection of the band's early hit singles, originally released as 45s. Alongside the aforementioned "Shout To The Devil", "Marching On", "The Stand" and "Sixty Eight Guns", these also include "Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?" (No. 22 Uk), an acoustic anthem chasing country pathways through harmonica wheezes and pub-style choruses, and the heart-wrenching ballad "The Deceiver" (No. 51 Uk), sung by Peters in his trademark choked-up, melodramatic register, as well as the admittedly overblown "Blaze Of Glory", dedicated to the American Civil War and recorded with producer Mick Glossop (in a session following the one for "The Stand").

But rounding out the dish are also the sour notes of "Third Light" – a kind of funeral lament at an unknown soldier's grave, sung by MacDonald – and the bittersweet flavor of the closing "We Are The Light", which once again reveals the band's melodic gift, set against a dense web of acoustic arpeggios.

Declaration is the declaration of intent of a band of barricade-stormers, brimming with sincere passion and sonic power. Possessed of a natural grandeur born from the fusion of folk epic and punk electricity, these tracks don't need Lillywhite-style technicolor production to shine at their best. Shacklock knows this well, preserving their spontaneity and, if anything, highlighting the tenderness of the acoustic arrangements and the adrenaline-fueled immediacy typical of their live performances. An alchemy not too far removed from that of their "Scottish cousins" Big Country, with whom, as we'll see, their paths will eventually cross.

For the Welsh band, it's the crowning achievement after years and years of club gigs, demos, auditions and grueling tours. Even Rolling Stone bestows its blessing, calling Alarm "one of the best live bands of the past year".

"This is my year, it's 1984", sang fleeting blonde pop star Maxine that very year. Mike Peters and co. could well join in the chorus.

Give me love

Give me hope

Give me strength

Give me someone to live for

(“Strength”)

A Show of Strength

These are years of dizzying musical transformation. The Eighties quickly swallow up punk, new wave and synth-pop, and head towards a second half of the decade dominated by new sounds and trends, from new cool to new pop. Live Aid, in this sense, marks almost a dividing line. But, just like their Irish cousins U2, the Alarm know how to stay afloat. Mike Peters' bleached-blond, heavily teased mane makes its way onto the screens of MTV too, where the Welshmen's videos start getting regular airplay.

The new single “Absolute Reality” also hits the mark, cracking the UK Top 40, despite a refrain as catchy as it is insubstantial and arrangements with choirs and handclapping dangerously close to kitsch. But the wind is blowing their way, and it has to be put to good use. So, entrusting themselves to a new producer, Mike Howlett, the Alarm shut themselves away in the studio and churn out their second album, Strength (1985).

Howlett tries to simultaneously refine and beef up their sound, smoothing out the more naive elements, focusing above all on Peters' vocals and adding the occasional keyboard here and there. The first shot fired is the title track: a powerhouse of punch and catchiness, with a solemn organ intro, a take-no-prisoners guitar riff and a chorus already arena-ready. "Strength" is one of those typical mid-80s hits, post-punk in spirit and power-pop(rock) in form, somewhere between Billy Idol and "Pride (In The Name Of Love)". It certainly works, and certainly drags the album towards its goal, namely the British charts and the longed-for US Billboard Top 40. Along the same lines is the opener, the even more anthemic "Knife Edge", which borrows its riff from the Who but happily winks at a certain strand of American hard-rock/AOR (it's certainly no coincidence that the Welshmen built up a solid following across the pond).

On the whole, electricity takes over, and little remains of the folk roots. The exceptions are the airy, piano-led "Walk Forever By My Side" (featuring one of Peters' most intense performances) and "Spirit Of '76", a proletarian ballad in the vein of Springsteen (or Mellencamp), with string arrangements and lyrics that evoke the glorious punk saga while also adding a few wistful reflections on the fate of that era. In the same contrite tone is "Deeside", a litany on the hard luck of the working man, topped off with another emphatic chorus (though a less striking one).

With their naive folk-punk energy spent and their passionate anthems full of faith and hope set aside in favour of more mature rock songs, the Alarm suddenly seem overcome by pessimism. "I'm living or dying"?, Peters asks ("Strength"), describing himself as "a lonely man walking lonely streets" in the desolate "Dawn Chorus", and seeing around him nothing but "a pointlessness about it all" ("Knifedge"), "black times everywhere" ("Father To Son") and "cruelty and unkindness of life" ("Spirit Of '76").

Strength seals the definitive maturity of the former punksters from Rhyl, through a careful dosing of all the ingredients that had marked the first phase of their career.

The Alarm are practically at the peak of their popularity, and they seal this magic moment with the first globally broadcast satellite concert, the legendary "Spirit of '86" show, performed in front of 26,000 fans on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles and broadcast live worldwide by MTV. But they don't let another golden opportunity slip by either: an opening slot for Queen, at the historic Live at Wembley show on 12 July 1986. This vein of support-tour gold would continue the following year with further glory, this time in the United States, alongside none other than Bob Dylan (one of Peters' idols, along with Guthrie and Bowie). But first it's time for a new album. A surprising work, one that would open up new musical horizons for the Welsh band, but would also draw the first misgivings from their earliest fans.

The docks are all crippled in the Northern town

The boys have all gone away tryin’ to find work down south

Hey mister I walk, in the valley of the shadow

someone have mercy on my soul

(“Hallowed Ground”)

In the Eye of the Storm

Venturing a rash comparison with Simple Minds, one could call Eye Of The Hurricane (1987) the Alarm's "Once Upon A Time". Except it doesn't contain a global hit like "Alive And Kicking", but neither does it have those bombastic, garish sounds that undermined the magical balance of Jim Kerr's band. It's simply the Alarm formula updated to the era of big mainstream rock productions. But – and this is what interests us most – there are at least a couple of songs worth remembering. First and foremost, the single and opening track "Rain In The Summertime" (No. 18 in the UK Chart), an FM-ballad in the noblest sense of the term, with a full, atmospheric sound wrapping around an epic chorus – somewhere in the middle ground between the U2 of "The Joshua Tree" and the Ultravox of "Lament" – delivered in fine style by a Peters now fully aware of his vocal powers. A new anthem, in short, in which Sharp's persistent guitar tingle plays no small part, first with acoustic chords, then with electric backing.

But the other impassioned ode, “Hallowed Ground”, is just as striking, a low, sweeping flight through new folk-tinged arpeggios and vigorous piano lines that seem almost to paint the desolate scenes described in the lyrics: “The docks are all crippled in the Northern town/ The boys have all gone away tryin’ to find work down south/ Hey mister I walk, in the valley of the shadow/ someone have mercy on my soul, soul, soul”, sings a despairing Peters, at the peak of his expressive power. Two splendid songs that truly manage to transform Alarm's rough-hewn messianic vocation into something universal.

Having set the "line" with these two feats, the Welshmen struggle, however, to stay at the same level for the whole journey. The vocal experiment by drummer Twist on "One Step Closer To Home" (recorded live) falls flat, and the attempt to clone the Police's "Every Breath You Take" on "Presence Of Love" raises more than a few doubts, not helped by the production's excessive gloss.

More genuine, if anything, are the power-rock vibrations of "Permanence In Change", "Shelter" (with a riff that echoes Pete Townshend's "The Good's Gone") and "Only Love Can Set Me Free", which nonetheless lack the refrains needed to really leave a mark. But it's above all in the closing title track, with strings and the insistent jangle of acoustic guitar staging a dramatic climax, that Alarm get back on track, closing out an uneven, if occasionally thrilling, album on a fitting note.

Eye Of The Hurricane will have no trouble making the charts (No. 23 in the UK chart, No. 77 in the US), but it will also draw fresh criticism toward Peters and co. First from old fans, who will accuse the band of having abandoned the raw folk-rock instinct of their early days, and then from the snobbier critics, who won't forgive them the inevitable comparison with U2, who at that very time were themselves drifting toward sounds closer to American FM-rock with "The Joshua Tree" and, above all, "Rattle And Hum".

But Peters and co. prove themselves, above all, a first-rate live band. They open for Bob Dylan on his American tour, joining him for the encores, and release a live EP, Electric Folklore Live, recorded at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston on April 26, 1988, yet another testament to the band's generosity and firepower on stage.

This land is not for sale

("Hardland")

A Prayer for Wales

The following year brings change. The new album Change (1989) is a tribute to their homeland and its dying language, complete with an alternate Welsh-language version, "Newid". But the biggest novelty is behind the mixing desk, where none other than Tony Visconti, David Bowie's longtime producer, is brought in. It's he who shapes the new sound, a fairly muscular rock verging on hard rock, rediscovering the firepower of the guitars while also flirting with the blues, as on the populist "Devolution Workin' Man Blues" and the fiery "Sold Me Down The River", which will land them in the US Billboard Top 50 for the first and only time. A track like "Rock" best seals the bold fusion achieved by Visconti: the epic vocation of their early days (the heart-in-throat vocals, the aching melody of the chorus, the clattering guitars) wedded to a fuller, more polished, radio-hit sound. An experiment carried on in the tormented "Scarlet" and pushed even further, toward wild rock prairies in the style of Neil Young, amid the white-hot riffs of "Hardland", where Peters exalts the defense of his homeland: “The valley is ripped and the mountain scarred/ Torn apart/ A house is ablaze on the hillside/ A sign says ‘This land is not for sale’”. The band's heartfelt attitude also fuels the new power ballad "Love Don't Come Easy", where, truth be told, Peters seems to be doing a pretty good Bono impression.

It's at the very end, though, that the album reaches its emotional peak, in a closing ballad that gives deeper meaning to the whole record, sealing a touching tribute to Wales and its age-old traditions, threatened by progress and the greed of contemporary society. It's the solemn symphonic hymn of "A New South Wales": heartfelt, intense, moving, helped along by the grandeur brought by the Welsh Symphony Orchestra and the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir, in a flood of strings and choral voices one would never have imagined in an Alarm song, yet which strikes straight at the heart. "Someone hear my prayer", pleads a thoroughly desperate Peters, before taking in the applause (the track is recorded live). Almost an epitaph for the entire Alarm story.

Change marks, all things considered, a step forward for the Welsh band, but it only achieves the hoped-for success at home, scaling back the international popularity of a group nonetheless capable of winning praise from illustrious peers like Bono and Neil Young, who duets with them on "Rocking In The Free World" during a concert.

The compilation Standards (1990) nonetheless captures a career that had, up to that point, been thoroughly respectable, gathering 12 of the best tracks by the band from Rhyl, plus three new ones: the autobiographical "The Road", a remake of an old single ("Unsafe Building") and a cover of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)".

But Peters and co. have by now reached the end of the road. Dave Sharp begins laying the groundwork for a solo career, internal tensions mount. The breakup is just around the corner, and it comes right after the release of their fifth studio album, Raw (1991). A final act that, it must be said, is anything but memorable, though it does include an interesting cover of that very "Rocking In The Free World" just celebrated alongside its illustrious author. Less striking is the title track "Raw", in which the band's epic breadth truly seems to be running out of steam. Indeed, they themselves seem almost to admit it: "Somewhere we got lost along the way", sings Peters, in one of the few tracks that actually hold up, the languid "Moments In Time", which dusts off old generational nostalgia ("A Woodstock field in the heat of the night"… "Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones"… live on forever in my mind"). And it is the band's own unity that has gone astray, undermined by misunderstandings leading to a gradual erosion of creativity. While the grunge epic is exploding around the world, Alarm doggedly sing "God Save Somebody", flirting with country, but their guitars have stopped roaring, and even the harmonica-driven gallop of "Wonderful World" (with Sharp on vocals) is just a pale echo of the vibrant Dylan-esque folk-rock that had once filled the grooves of their early records. Reaching No. 33 in the UK chart nonetheless testifies to the loyalty of their British audience.

Tonight this is my last moment with the Alarm, I’m going out in a Blaze of Glory

(Mike Peters)

The Power of the Poppy

Alarm play the final date of the album's promotional tour at Brixton Academy in London on June 30, 1991. And the ending is a gut punch for fans: from the stage, Peters announces to the rest of the band and the audience that he wants to pull the plug: "Tonight this is my last moment with the Alarm, I'm going out in a Blaze of Glory". Still in shock, the fans find a new way to stay connected through one of the earliest websites dedicated to a band, www.thealarm.com, which from 1992 onward would draw fans from all over the world. That connection also takes shape in a dedicated event, "Gathering", held every January in North Wales.

But it's also a new generation of musicians paying tribute to the band. Fellow countrymen Manic Street Preachers, for instance, have declared themselves devoted fans ever since the band's earliest shows in Cardiff. And the bilingual approach of Super Furry Animals was certainly inspired by Peters & co., who also had a tradition of only booking Welsh-language bands as support acts for their homeland shows: Y Cyrff (who later became Catatonia) opened the 1989 tour; ten years later, Stereophonics would answer Peters's call to save Snowdon mountain by playing a benefit concert that pitted two generations of Welsh rock against each other.

After leaving the Alarm, Peters first joined The Poets Of Justice (with his wife Jules Peters on keyboards), then formed Coloursound with Billy Duffy of the Cult, before embarking on a solo career that would pass largely unnoticed.

In 2000, however, twenty years after the band's founding, the Alarm name returned to record shop shelves thanks to a massive reissue campaign. The entire album catalogue was remastered for the first time by Peters himself using the original tapes, and reissued by the 21st Century Recording Company under license from EMI. The Alarm 2000 Collection included previously unreleased bonus tracks and new packaging, with the original artwork, archive photos and extensive sleeve notes featuring contributions from all the original band members. The collection was also released as a box set, "The Alarm Complete": the band's 7 official studio albums, plus one of rarities and one made "ad personam": buyers chose a song, mailed in a coupon, and Peters would record them an individual acoustic version, complete with a personal dedication. Unthinkable stuff, in today's mass-market music industry.

Following the release, Peters used the historic name for a tour, enlisting his late-90s backing band: Steve Grantley of Stiff Little Fingers, Craig Adams (Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission, The Cult) and James Stevenson (Chelsea, Gene Loves Jezebel). An MM++ was appended to the Alarm name, using roman numerals to indicate the year each record came out. Wales also hosted an "Alarm 2000 Day", a 12-hour fan-club concert event in which Peters played acoustic versions of every song in the band's catalogue. The tour also made a stop in Italy, at Rome's Big Mama, for two consecutive shows with an unexpected fan turned guest star, Ligabue, who took the stage alongside Peters & co. (he would later invite them in 2002 to open for his own shows at Milan's San Siro and Rome's Stadio Olimpico).

An electric world tour followed in 2001-2002. During the same period, Peters gave the world premiere, in Verona, of a solo performance of the Alarm's greatest songs, accompanied by the Sipja string octet.

Buoyed by this success, Peters announced a new, ambitious project: five albums of unreleased material, to be put out at regular intervals through the first half of 2003, in a series titled "In The Poppy Fields" ("poppy" being the flower that has always served as the band's symbol). The first of these five records came out in 2003 under the title Close. It's a work that harks back to the raw, epic guitar-rock of the 1980s, dusting off a solid melodic sense and the usual driving riffs, alternated with acoustic arpeggios: "Right Back Where I Started From", as one song title candidly admits. Tracks like "Close" or "The Rock And Roll" (the latter with lyrics that are almost touching in their earnestness, like "the fire of rock'n'roll still burns in me") recapture an honest, standard-issue Alarm sound - a bit rowdy, a bit workmanlike - that can satisfy existing fans but certainly won't win over any new ones. The other four chapters (The Normal Rules Do Not Apply, Trafficking, Edward Henry Street and Coming Home) followed in the same vein, released to general indifference. Until Peters had a stroke of genius.

In 2004, together with the new MM++ line-up, the Alarm frontman recorded a single called "45 RPM" - a decent slice of wild, pogo-ready rock'n'roll - under the fictitious name The Poppy Fields, in order to play a prank on the record industry. But the joke didn't stop there: for the video, a young Welsh band called The Wayriders was recruited to lip-sync the song. The upshot was that the elusive Poppy Fields broke into the UK Top 30 before the trick was even revealed live by Peters on a Radio 1 show (the whole affair would later inspire Sara Sugarman's 2013 comedy "Vinyl", with a soundtrack by the Alarm themselves).

It was a brilliant way to expose the shallow, youth-obsessed marketing of the music business, and at the same time the ideal opportunity to finally release the new album with the inevitable title In The Poppy Fields, containing all the material the band had recorded between 2002 and 2004, previously spread across the five phantom albums distributed only through the official website.

In The Poppy Fields (2004) is a record that's backward-looking to its core, yet honest and heartfelt in the best tradition of Welsh rockers. The opener "Your Possible Pasts - Anathema" sounds almost like a track by the most Waters-era Pink Floyd, the aforementioned "Close", "The Rock And Roll" and "Right Back Where I Started From" ooze nostalgia from every note, the classic rock of "The Drunk And The Disorderly" is steeped in the Spirit of '76 and the band's usual spiritual yearning ("Who am I? Who are you? Who is the God that we bow down to?"), while the infamous prank single "45 RPM", however surprisingly spirited and dynamic, is ultimately nothing more than a fine tribute to the Buzzcocks' punk of "Spiral Scratch", complete with the heartfelt rallying cry "Keep the dream alive until the end".

The only glance toward the future - starting with the title itself - comes with the aching ballad "New Home, New Life" (for piano and guitars that ring out like mandolins), but it's a horizon tinged with melancholy, if not outright anguish, judging by Peters's falsetto, strangled in his throat. Perhaps because the future is "The Unexplained", as they sing in an acoustic number that almost seems to echo the softer side of Manic Street Preachers.

Closing the record is a title track that sounds like both a celebration and an epitaph for these somewhat dated poppy fields - though ultimately no worse than plenty of late-period U2 songs, a band that, incidentally, has long since lost the very straightforwardness enshrined in the Alarm's own name.

But in 2005, chilling news arrived for everyone: Peters was diagnosed with an illness, beginning a long battle against leukaemia.

Indomitable, just like in his songs, the Alarm frontman underwent treatment, founded the Love Hope Strength cancer charity, and at the same time never stopped making music. In 2005 he reunited the band's original line-up for a Vh1 TV show, but that was a one-off event: the albums subsequently released under the Alarm name - Under Attack in 2006 and Guerilla Tactics in 2008 - would feature Peters alone.

I felt bulletproof, I thought I'd finally made it. Now I have to find the strength to remember how I felt before I got this news. I know I'll fight on

(Mike Peters)

Peters Against the World

There isn't much to add about these late works from the late-period incarnation of the blond frontman from Rhyl. The craftsmanship is certainly appreciable, as is the indefatigable rock energy oozing from the grooves. But freshness and creativity in the songwriting are entirely missing, and the over-production certainly doesn't help a sound that fails to stand out from the blandness of mainstream rock radio playlists. Nonetheless, Under Attack manages to land a track (the rollicking rocker "Superchannel") in the UK Top 30, offering here and there a few scraps of the old post-punk epicness (a "Be Still" that sounds like an "I Will Follow" for the 2000s, a "My Town" that still has something to teach today's nu-wave upstarts) and a handful of fairly compelling riffs, like those of "Raindown", which recall early Interpol combined with the pathos guaranteed by Peters' pipes (in fine form, despite his illness). These are the high points of an album that otherwise settles for far too long into a flabby late-rock tone, of which "Without A Fight" and "Zero" can be considered the epitome. If that's the present, then long live the past, "Cease And Desist" seems almost to suggest, practically a tribute to the early Clash.

The following Guerrilla Tactics (2008) sticks to the same formula, with full-throttle punk-rock numbers, chanted choruses and booming guitars. As he gets older, Peters seems to look backwards, above all to the Clash, whom he openly echoes in the explicit tribute "Three Sevens Clash" or in the more veiled "Situation Under Control", or again with the obsessive riffs of "Alarm Calling", a blatant homage to "London Calling" disguised as a self-celebratory anthem for the Welsh band.

This backward journey in search of the Spirit of '76 perhaps finds its best moment amid the reverb and the punchy chorus of a "Rat Trap" as energetic as it is melodic, while the call-and-response of "Fightback" and the blunt chorus of "Watching Me Watching You Watching Them Watching Us", by contrast, betray the short breath of this nostalgia exercise, which an ever more stoic Peters seals with a touching farewell, set to harmonica, titled after his own cancer charity, "Love Hope Strength".

While he continues to fight the illness, Peters shows no sign of slowing his dizzying output: in 2010 comes Direct Action, yet another declaration of love for hot-blooded, instinctive rock that never ages. But in 2010 it's hard to take programmatic statements like "Direct Action" seriously anymore, stuffed as they are with chunky guitars and battle cries, as if it were still 1979. Still, while the title track at least condenses the essence of the entire previous album into just over three minutes, and tracks like "Release The Pressure" and "Higher Call" dust off an arsenal of distorted guitars, emphatic choruses and breathless harmonicas sure to please longtime fans, other tracks get lost in a vagueness of outline from which there's no escape (the insipid "Plastic Carrier Bags", the muscular hard rock of "Loaded", the late-U2-style sermonizing of "Control").

Things go slightly better with the cover of Willie Nile's "One Guitar", duly given the Alarm treatment as if it had come straight out of Declaration, and with the declamatory "Change III", which closes the trilogy begun with "Change II" (from Change) and "Change I", the B-side of the single "Raw". But it's above all the ballad "Come Alive" that leaves its mark, with its trail of acoustic guitars and Townsend-style electric riffs.

Too little, however, to lift an album that sounds hopelessly out of time, for a band now completely off the radar of the music media. What remains is the romantic testimony of a coherent journey, of a fearless fight against everything and everyone, embodied by now even physically by Mike Peters himself, worn, lined with wrinkles, but still proud and combative as in the good old days.

Not content with his tireless activity in the Alarm, Peters also finds time to join the surviving members of Big Country – here's the reunion between the paths of the two bands mentioned earlier – for a series of concerts and for a new single produced by Steve Lillywhite, the Scottish band's first in 11 years, "Another Country", later followed by an album, "The Journey" (2013). Left without their historic leader Stuart Adamson, found hanged at the Best Western Plaza Hotel in Honolulu (Hawaii) in 2001, the new Big Country also had to deal with the departure of bassist Tony Butler, replaced by ex-Simple Minds man Derek Forbes, but they found in Peters a worthy frontman and songwriter, whose entry into the line-up had already been blessed by Adamson himself, determined to hand over the reins of the group.

The experience, however, is short-lived: on November 9, 2013, Peters leaves Big Country to devote himself to the Alarm and his solo projects – which had continued over the years, from Breathe (1995) to Flesh And Blood (2000), via Feel Free (1996) and Rise (1998).

Fate, however, grants him no respite. In 2015 the 56-year-old Welsh singer revealed that his ordeal was not over, despite having already beaten lymphoma in 1995 and leukemia ten years later. "I have to face cancer again for the third time – he said just days before the October 10 concert at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff for the thirtieth anniversary of Strength – I felt bulletproof, I thought I'd finally made it. Now I have to find the strength to remember how I felt before getting this news. I know I'll fight again."

On April 29, 2025, the long-feared news arrived: Mike Peters had passed away at the age of 66. A year earlier he had been forced to cancel a US tour after being diagnosed with a fast-growing lymphoma. He had been undergoing treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester.

His life was an extraordinary example of courage and determination. An example of true, moving strength, for all of us.

Ride the wave of great music

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