Forgotten Albums #002: The Comsat Angels - Sleep No More

Released: 1981 | Label: Polydor | Genre: Post-Punk

There are albums that disappear because they weren't very good.

And then there are albums that disappear because history is terrible at filing things.

Sleep No More, the second album by Sheffield's The Comsat Angels, belongs firmly in the second category.

Released in 1981, it arrived during one of the most ridiculously fertile periods in British post-punk. Joy Division had changed the landscape. The Cure were descending into increasingly dark territory. Siouxsie and the Banshees were becoming stranger and more sophisticated. Wire had already demonstrated that punk could mutate into practically anything.

And somewhere in Sheffield, The Comsat Angels made an album that could comfortably stand in that company.

Yet somehow, Sleep No More became the record people discover twenty or thirty years later and immediately ask:

How did I miss this?

Sheffield After Dark

The Comsat Angels formed in Sheffield in 1978, originally under the less memorable name Radio Earth.

The lineup was Stephen Fellows on guitar and vocals, Kevin Bacon on bass, Andy Peake on keyboards and Mik Glaisher on drums.

Sheffield at the time was producing some wonderfully strange music. The city's industrial landscape seemed to seep directly into its bands. Cabaret Voltaire turned factories into electronic paranoia. The Human League transformed synthesizers into pop machinery. Clock DVA explored the darker edges of post-punk.

The Comsat Angels occupied a slightly different corner.

Their music was spacious rather than mechanical.

Guitars echoed.

Bass lines prowled.

Drums sounded enormous.

Keyboards appeared less as melodies than weather systems.

Their debut album, Waiting for a Miracle, released in 1980, established the basic architecture. But on Sleep No More, the band pushed everything further.

The spaces became larger.

The shadows became darker.

The Sound of an Empty Building

The first thing you notice about Sleep No More is the drums.

They are huge.

Not polished arena-rock huge. These drums sound as though Mik Glaisher is playing somewhere at the far end of an abandoned warehouse.

The production makes the entire album feel physical. There is air around every instrument, yet the record never feels empty.

Instead, the emptiness becomes part of the music.

Opening track "The Eye Dance" immediately establishes the atmosphere. A relentless rhythm pushes forward while Stephen Fellows' guitar appears in flashes rather than conventional chords.

This isn't music interested in showing off.

It is music interested in tension.

And tension becomes the album's primary instrument.

Gone

Then comes "Gone."

If you need one track to explain why The Comsat Angels matter, start here.

The song moves with an almost hypnotic inevitability. The bass and drums establish a pulse while Fellows' guitar hangs around the edges, occasionally slicing through the arrangement.

Nothing is wasted.

There is no heroic guitar solo waiting around the corner.

No giant chorus engineered for an arena.

Just four musicians constructing an atmosphere and refusing to break it.

It's post-punk reduced to architecture: rhythm, space, repetition and anxiety.

Dark Parade

"Dark Parade" may be the album's emotional center.

The rhythm section again does most of the heavy lifting, while guitar and keyboards create layers around it.

The Comsat Angels understood something many bands never learn:

You don't have to fill every empty space.

Sometimes the empty space is the point.

Listen on headphones and the record becomes almost three-dimensional. Instruments appear, disappear and echo somewhere beyond the immediate mix.

You begin listening to the room as much as the band.

Why Didn't They Become Huge?

This is where the story becomes frustrating.

The Comsat Angels had the songs.

They had a distinctive sound.

They had excellent musicians.

They had critical respect.

What they didn't have was luck.

Even their name became a problem.

The band had taken "Comsat" from a J.G. Ballard short story, but COMSAT was also the name of an American communications satellite corporation.

When the band attempted to establish themselves in the United States, legal pressure forced them to temporarily operate under the spectacularly inferior name CS Angels.

Nothing says "future legendary band" quite like sounding like an IT consulting company.

But there was another problem.

The Comsat Angels existed in a crowded musical neighborhood.

Joy Division had become mythological.

The Cure had Robert Smith.

Echo & the Bunnymen had Ian McCulloch.

Siouxsie and the Banshees had Siouxsie Sioux.

The Comsat Angels had something less easily marketed: four musicians quietly making extraordinarily atmospheric records.

History tends to reward characters.

The Comsat Angels concentrated on music.

The Chameleons Connection

Listening today, another band inevitably comes to mind:

The Chameleons.

The connection isn't surprising.

Both bands built enormous emotional landscapes using relatively simple musical components. Both understood the power of delay and space. Both allowed bass and drums to carry songs while guitars painted around them.

And both somehow ended up occupying that strange category of bands that musicians and obsessive music fans adore while much of the wider public barely recognizes their names.

If you love Script of the Bridge, there is a very good chance Sleep No More will feel immediately familiar.

Not identical.

Related.

Two roads running through the same rainy northern landscape.

The Album Doesn't Sound Like 1981

Perhaps the strangest thing about Sleep No More is how little it feels like a historical artifact.

Many albums from 1981 announce their age immediately.

Production fashions change. Synthesizers become recognizable. Drum sounds betray the decade.

But Sleep No More lives somewhere outside that timeline.

Its influence can be heard in later post-punk revival bands, atmospheric alternative rock and the enormous universe eventually labeled "goth," even though The Comsat Angels never fit comfortably inside that box.

You could release parts of this record today and nobody would blink.

Which makes its relative obscurity even harder to understand.

Where to Start

If you're hearing Sleep No More for the first time, don't shuffle it.

This is an album.

Put on headphones.

Turn the lights down.

Start with "The Eye Dance."

Then let the record unfold.

But if you absolutely need a few tracks first, start with:

"Gone"The essential Comsat Angels track. Hypnotic, economical and quietly devastating.

"Dark Parade"A perfect demonstration of the band's ability to create enormous atmosphere without overcrowding the music.

"Be Brave"Urgent and uneasy, with the rhythm section pushing relentlessly underneath Fellows' guitar.

"Our Secret"Another example of how effectively the band could turn repetition into emotional pressure.

Why Sleep No More Matters

Post-punk is often remembered through a surprisingly small collection of bands.

Joy Division.

The Cure.

Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Wire.

Gang of Four.

Public Image Ltd.

They deserve their reputations.

But musical history becomes much more interesting when you start exploring the roads running alongside the main highway.

That's where you find records like Sleep No More.

It doesn't need rediscovery because it was secretly influential or because collectors decided an original pressing was worth ridiculous money.

It needs rediscovery for a much simpler reason.

It's a great record.

Forty-five years after its release, The Comsat Angels still sound tense, mysterious and strangely modern.

History may have misplaced the file.

Fortunately, someone left the record behind.

And it's still playing.

RadioPeng recommends

Album: Sleep No MoreArtist: The Comsat AngelsReleased: 1981Start with: "Gone"Then: "Dark Parade," "Be Brave," "Our Secret"

If you like: The Chameleons, Joy Division, early The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Sound

Best way to listen: Headphones, preferably after midnight.