release date: Jun. 1980
format: vinyl (first pressing - MdLP 6027) / digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]
producer: Michael Ritto, Werner Scherrer
label: Medley Records - nationality: Denmark
Tracklist: 1. "Repeature" - 2. "Ice-age for a While" (3 / 5) - 3. "Walking on Red" - 4. "Conflict" (3 / 5) - 5. "Roller Ball" - 6. "Marble Station" - 7. "Misguided" (3 / 5) - 8. "Eveningsong"
2nd studio album by Sods and also the final album under the name of Sods is released some 1½ years following the debut, which for a punk rock band was almost seen as too long. The quartet is intact and musically, it's apparent that the band has come a long way as it's quite a different outing compared to their first studio album. The style here is definetely post-punk but also in a bolder American and New York-based experimental art punk and no wave-style.
I was really fond of the debut and just went out and purchased this without having heard a single track from it, and boy, was I disappointed! The music is something entirely different from the simplistic and abrasive hardcore debut, and although, I was had found much interest in the new stylistic developments within punk rock and the post punk-sphere, I never found this particular album that great. "Marble Station" is a song with lyrics by Danish poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen, and the end-track, "Eveningsong" features Lars Hug of Kliché on vocals - he later debuted with his solo album City Slang (1984) consisting of music to poems entirely written by Søren Ulrik Thomsen.
It's not an entirely poor album but it's really clearly a stepping stone towards something else both pointing backwards and ahead to new pastures. After this, the band rejected the name Sods and continued with an unchanged members list under the name of Sort Sol.
In retrospect, I have come to think better of the album than at the time of its release. It's quite original in its sound and style, and it does contain some fine compositions.
[ collectors' item - 1st pressing - from ~ €66,- ]
