Review: Review: Coloursound EP

This mini-LP, retailing at a mere pounds sterling3.99, sees The Alarm working their way through six of their standards- Rescue Me, Strength, Rain In The Summertime, Spirit Of ’76, Permanence In Change and Blaze Of Glory-and as live recordings go, it’s not a bad effort at all. The production is squeaky clean and captures the interaction between band and audience perfectly, particularly on Blaze Of Glory where everyone sings along [read more]

The album title tells it. The Alarm, once ardent sons of ’68 Guns’ have, in their time, hopped, skipped, and straddled most conceivable and accepted rock styles – falling in and out of favour as they’ve done so. If ‘Change” does transcend their solid base of appreciation, then it will almost certainly be helped by Mike Peters’ stark, homespun words streaked with apparent Welsh pride and tarnished emotion. “The valley [read more]

Essentially, this record started out life as a CD version of �The Alarm� E.P., which has never been released. Instead, it has become something much more. This CD stands as an historical record, chronicling the sonic rise of a nearly anonymous Wales-based punk band into a chart-topping success story. The album starts out, appropriately enough, with a-side and b-side from The Alarm�s first independent 1981 single Unsafe Building b/w Up [read more]