It's not one of the more celebrated milestones on the wider rock'n'roll map, but this week sees the tenth anniversary of one of Post-Punk's saddest losses. Indeed, if you're a regular around these parts, you'll probably already know that your reviewer's talking about the death of Adrian Borland, leader of THE SOUND, who threw himself under a train ten years ago this week.
Unlike many rock-related casualties, Borland wasn't the victim of predictable excess. Instead, he'd been battling an insidious form of mental illness since 1987. This long-term condition had contributed to the break-up of The Sound at the end of 1987 (following the tremendous 'Thunder Up' album) when Adrian suffered a breakdown on stage and it continued to dog him through the next twelve years, finally pushing him to his untimely death at the age of 41 on April 26th 1999.
Adrian produced a formidable body of work during the course of his 20-year career as a recording artist. With his initial band, The Outsiders, he released Punk's first self-released full-length album in 1977's 'Calling On Youth'. During The Sound's lifetime (1979 – 1987), he helmed several classic Post-Punk albums including 'Jeopardy' (1980) and 'From The Lion's Mouth' (1981) while the band teetered on the brink of breaking into mass acceptance for several years and his later solo work brought further artistic triumphs such as 1989's solo debut 'Alexandria' and his last hurrah, 'Harmony & Destruction', which he was putting the finishing touches to when he died in 1999.
So really, you could choose any number of albums to remember Adrian Borland by. However, as good a pocket compendium of The Sound's career as any is the live album 'In The Hothouse': an extensive and superbly-recorded document of the band in full flight recorded over two nights at London's famous Marquee club in August 1985. Yes, great live albums are still relatively rare, but 'In The Hothouse' (the only 'official' live representation of The Sound released during their lifetime) features many of their classic songs played with an urgency and intensity which still astonishes today.
Originally released in 1986 (and later re-issued by the vigilant Renascent label in 2002), 'In The Hothouse' leans heavily on the songs from the then-current 'Head & Hearts' studio album and 1981's already-confirmed classic 'From The Lion's Mouth'. The latter provides the opening tune 'Winning', a fan favourite to this day. It's not hard to hear why either, as it's a leviathan of a song, with a broad, melancholic sweep similar to Joy Division's 'New Dawn Fades' yet instilled with a never-say-die positivity and an impassioned Borland vocal which can't fail to stop you in your tracks.
'...Lion's Mouth' also supplies several more key moments here. The under-rated 'Judgement' sounds ghostlier and more ethereal than its' recorded counterpart, while both 'Skeletons' and 'Sense of Purpose' are steely and savage. Best of all, though, is 'Silent Air'. Arguably this writer's favourite song by The Sound anyway, the version they present here is truly sublime: poised, poignant and magical, it's slightly longer than on record, but just about perfect regardless.
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The songs from 'Heads & Hearts' are perhaps more of a mixed bag. Songs like 'Wildest Dreams' and 'Burning Part of Me' sound ponderous and overwrought and some of Max Mayers' keyboard sounds haven't aged entirely gracefully. The album still had some great moments, though, and there's no denying the melodic punch of 'Prove Me Wrong' or the magnificent 'Total Recall'. Built around Graham Bailey's nervous heartbeat bass and Dudley's morse code drum tattoo, the latter is transcendent with Borland's passionate vocal spilling gloriously over the chorus.
Unlike a more predictable 'best of', 'In The Hothouse' also finds room for a few of The Sound's lesser-referenced and most under-rated tracks. Taken from the 'Shock of Daylight' mini-LP, 'Counting The Days' is one of the band's most full-on love songs, full of warmth and spirit. The much-maligned 'All Fall Down' album is represented by a tense and knotty 'Red Paint', dominated by a full-blooded Borland vocal and Dudley's thunderous drumming. The oft-forgotten single 'Hothouse' also remains a fan favourite and – like 'Prove Me Wrong' – it demonstrates that The Sound could write great, catchy singles when the mood prevailed.
Naturally, there's room for a blazing version of debut album 'Jeopardy”s cornerstone 'Heartland', while the final word goes to a super-wired and eerie and hell version of 'Missiles': seven minutes of youthful idealism with a message that – thanks to North Korea's recent rocket launches – appears to be coming full circle. It's the ideal finale, though the Renascent edition also includes two tracks from a 1984 Dutch festival, including a towering version of 'Monument' from 'All Fall Down' which is more than worth the price of admission in its' own right.
'In The Hothouse', then, provides us with a compelling alternative history of a vastly under-rated band firing on all cylinders and treating us to an hour's worth of wonderfully cathartic music. It's still enormously sad to think of Adrian Borland in the past tense, but what he left behind can only grow in stature.
(www.renascent.co.uk)
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