Description
Original 1981 UK press with printed innersleeve
Many English ex-punkers made really good, interesting records in the early ’80s that failed to garner the wider attention their former bands enjoyed. The opposite occurred in the U.S., where ex-punks got indie record deals selling just as many great records in their new bands as they had before (such as PiL, Magazine, early Simple Minds, and Big Country). But there were many more examples of the unfairly unwanted, like Steve Diggle’s F.O.C., TV Smith, Ruts D.C., Pauline Murray, the Aces, Colin Newman, Captain Sensible, the Professionals, Poly Styrene, Shake, the Armoury Show, and even the first odd and intriguing Jimmy Pursey solo album. Of all of these before-and-after stories, though, the most galling was watching Billy Idol become an international star while no one heard the really ambitious music made by his more talented ex-Generation X mates, guitarist Derwood Andrews and drummer Mark Laff, for one album in 1981 as Empire. The ex-Gen-X’ers and bassist Bernal were clearly feeling their way, but their explorations held some secret weapons: Laff was willing to alternate his established weighty pounding with laying back half the time, leaving room for Bernal’s early Cure-like basslines; and Andrews supplied astonishing primer on post-punk guitar with a splash of reverb. Already one of the hottest punk guitarists in history based on 1978’s Generation X, Expensive Sound represented the full flowering of a player tripling the range of what his guitar could express. At the same time, Greg Sage of the Wipers was recording the similarly unusual Youth of America, Andrews ability to whip up a wall of chords to rival Killing Joke and then twist them into more dark, moody, subconscious passages like the just-expired Joy Division is what this album still confers so long after it appeared and died at birth. If the new label hadn’t gone broke just putting out the album, maybe the usual industry indifference could have been overcome. But alas, it sunk without trace. Even without comparing this music to the odorous banality of “Rebel Yell,” Andrews and Laff were clearly on to something. And it took someone else’s scene an ocean away to recognize the well-titled Expensive Sound’s submerged brilliance and utter uniqueness. Few records have sounded like it since.
Track list:
1. Empire
2. Hot Seat
3. Electric Guitar
4. Turn It Round
5. Today
6. Expensive Sound
7. Safety
8. Him Or Me
9. All These Things
10. New Emotion
11. Stand