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release date: Mar. 7, 1983
format: vinyl / cd (1994 reissue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]
producer: Mike Hedges and The Undertones
label: Ardeck, EMI / Dojo Limited - nationality:
Track highlights: A) 1. "Got to Have You Back" (4,5 / 5) - 2. "Valentine's Treatment" - 5. "Untouchable" - "Bye Bye Baby Blue" - - B) 1. "Conscious" - 2. "Chain of Love" (4,5 / 5) - 4. "The Love Parade" - 5. "Save Me" - 6. "The Sin of Pride" - *14. "You Stand so Close (But You're Never There)" - *15. "Turning Blue" - *16. "Like That" - *18. "Window Shopping for New Clothes"
*Bonus track on 1994 cd reissue
4th and final studio album by The Undertones in its original line-up, not counting subsequent releases after the band's reformation in 1999. The Sin of Pride follows two years after Positive Touch (May 1981) and with this the band continue its turn towards a more mainstream sound and style initited with the predecessor with stronger focus on a Northern soul element. The standard vinyl album comes with 12 tracks with a total running time just under 40 mins. As is the case with the '81 album, the 1994 expanded cd issue comes with several fine bonus tracks and it extends the running time with another 22 minutes.
The album was regarded as a bit of a failure peaking at number #46 on the UK albums chart list as the weakest studio album by the band, and the three chosen singles from the album, tracks #B4, #A1, and #B2 came in as #97, #82, and #104 on the singles chart - needles say, not to much success. Tensions within the band hadn't made things easier over the course of the last two albums, so the end result was near evident. Alledgedly, Feargal Sharkey stood much alone in requesting a bolder soul-fueled style, and with the O'Neill brothers as the main songwriters seing more potential in a power pop-style, a split was inevitable. The band already broke up few months after the album release and Sharkey initiated a short but quite succesful solo career, while the remainders continued in the succesful quintet That Petrol Emotion with a new lead vocalist.
The Sin of Pride is like a second chapter to Positive Touch but it appears more coherent with an overall common sound and style, and then it contains two abosolute great pop soul classics that the general public simply wasn't up for when it came out, but they are songs that rightfully gained much more recognition in the aftermath, and perhaps especially after Sharkey's solo debut Feargal Sharkey (Nov. 1985), which reeks more of the Northern soul.
[ allmusic.com, Record Mirror 4 / 5 stars ]
