Sound

Another time, another time…

(Adrian Borland/The Sound,

"Total Recall")

The history of rock is dotted with glorious failures, with "beautiful losers" to whom only time has, in the end, done justice. The case of The Sound is one of the most emblematic and, at the same time, tragically ironic. Because Adrian Borland, the band's soul, passed away just before their music was granted an unforeseen "second life," resurfacing in the DNA of countless contemporary bands (from Interpol onward), to the point of sounding today even more "modern" than the work of many sacred monsters of the post-punk era. The praiseworthy Renascent label caught on in time, reissuing almost the band's entire discography at the start of the 2000s.

One could argue at length over the reasons for a failure that, seen through today's eyes, appears inconceivable, especially in a country like Britain, which has always known how to nurture its own talents. Perhaps The Sound were simply too versatile for an era that demanded neat labels: no longer orthodox punks, not gothic enough for the dark crowd, nor psychedelic enough to join the club of their fellow countrymen Julian Cope and Echo & The Bunnymen. Or perhaps, more simply, they lacked a "character" on a par with the dark stars of the moment. Borland, after all, was neither a frontman with the neurotic magnetism of Ian Curtis, nor a theatrical mask like Peter Murphy, nor a performer with the witchy fervour of a Siouxsie Sioux. He was simply a (excellent) "normal" singer, in an age when striking looks and shapeshifting personas ruled supreme. It's certainly surprising that even today there are those who overlook them entirely (even Simon Reynolds, in his bible "Post-punk"), but then again, history is also made up of countless mysterious omissions.

Guitarist and singer Adrian Borland made his debut in 1977 with a punk band, the Outsiders, who self-released the album "Calling On Youth". Then, an early line-up of the future Sound put out an EP and several singles in 1979, catching the attention of indie label Korova. The band settled into a quartet: alongside Borland were Graham Green Bailey (bass), Mike Dudley (drums), and Bi Marshall (keyboards).

Under the name The Sound – whose very simplicity already says it all – came the debut album, "Jeopardy" (1980). Now hailed as a wave landmark, at the time it was something of a flop, so much so that the four members almost immediately found themselves under pressure from record executives to make their music more accessible. But in truth, someone had already seen further ahead. Critic Steve Sutherland, writing in Melody Maker, declared that "Jeopardy" had "more spirit, soul and sincerity than any other record released that year". And it was no ordinary year...

Recorded on a shoestring, with a bare-bones, minimalist production, "Jeopardy" oozes punk adrenaline through its jagged guitar riffs, yet pairs it with an aching, desolate spleen – Borland's fatalistic vocals, the disorienting keyboards, the bleak rhythm section – forging that quintessential darkwave sound that would go on to dominate the British scene of the 80s.

The opening of "I Can't Escape Myself" sows panic with the bare minimum of adornment: a bleak rhythm section and sparse Neu-esque synth vibrations introduce Borland's litany; then comes the sudden explosion, with distorted guitars taking off in unison with the drums. But it's only a flare-up, because just as it seems ready to detonate, the song cuts off abruptly, as if there really were no way out. In both lyrics and music, the essence of The Sound is already all there: the desperate visceral quality, the awareness of a suffocating, inescapable existence. Even the amphetamine rush of the following "Heartland" is an artificial illusion: a frantic punk sprint amid dazzling bursts of synth, with a central guitar solo redolent of Verlaine.

The epic grandeur recalls early U2, but the mood is the paranoid one of the noblest wave tradition. Even the seemingly radiant chorus of the title track clashes with a sickly atmosphere, where the synths hiss malevolently and the guitars clatter in the distance.

The whole record wavers between nervy outbursts and stretches of chilling desolation. Holding it all together is an obsessive, sordid, rubbery bass, capable of stirring up the Curtis-like ghost of "Hour Of Need" amid swirling webs of guitars and walls of synth, of setting off exhausting rock'n'roll gallops ("Heyday", "Resistance"), or of shaking to its core that most peculiar love song called "Words Fail Me", where an unexpected sax sketches out a fragment of melody.

Elsewhere the record delves into darker rooms: "Night Versus Day" is a hypnotic liturgy fit for a Sisters Of Mercy temple of love, "Unwritten Law" unwinds over a menacing mid-tempo, with searing guitar riffs slicing through dense layers of synth, while the closing "Desire" is a morbid, Bauhaus-like incantation, stripped however of all theatrical excess and left adrift in a slow crescendo of instruments, entering one by one, propped up by that same bass.

Borland's pure, almost naive idealism is sublimated in the anti-militarist anthem "Missiles", moving in its desperate crescendo, with low-flying sweeps of feedback-drenched guitars and terrifying keyboards that almost mimic the shriek of warplanes. "Who the hell makes these missiles?" is a curse that might raise a smile even in 1980, in the depths of the Cold War, but immersed in that sound it sends shivers down the spine.

The Sound never indulge in the poses of bored dandies, of sad Pierrots, or of strung-out Rocky Horror Picture Show survivors: they fire straight shots into the listener's face, with no compromises. Take it or leave it. And many, sadly, would leave it. Even Adrian Borland, crushed by artistic failures and his own personal defeat, would eventually surrender, in the most horrific way: throwing himself under a moving train at Wimbledon Station, on 26 April 1999.

Who knows if, among the many more or less conscious clones, someone will still remember that dishevelled-looking young man who screamed into the wind "I can't escape myself".

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18/01/2009