The Sundays — static & silence (1997)

Summertime will always remind me of the summer I learned to drive. My instructor kindly left the radio on while he nipped into a shop for ciggies and there it was. Workington perhaps? Or maybe we’d made it all the way to Maryport. So I have some sympathy for Baddiel.

Agree with Matt - when I think of Gavurin's playing I used to think primarily of acoustic and hollow rhythm guitar. Which was unfair to him because he also has loads of really tasty electric leads ("Another Flavour" and "Goodbye" being among the standouts).

Kinda looks like the Union Chapel show had a second guitarist for at least some of it, yes? Of course Top of the Pops would have had a backing track. Still, even live they sounded amazing.

Those drums are so perfect you could be forgiven for suspecting that they were not acoustic.

Surely programmed in many cases? For all their virtues, a band with absolutely zero swing.

Great piece about the debut: https://www.classicpopmag.com/2022/02/classic-album-the-sundays-reading-writing-arithmetic/

Matt yes that was my suspicion about the records, but then you can literally see Hannan in the live clips playing those perfectly fine 16th-note grooves, flawlessly.

The records could have been a combo of progrmmed patterns and Hannan playing with really good microphones and compressors. I don't know. Does it matter at this point? I don't know.

I haven't really thought about them from a perspective of "swing." For me it's about clarity and pure joy in her voice, plus the delicious guitars. It was a sound that worked at the time.

Oh totally, it was not a criticism, what they do works for me very well!

"Summertime" was the single that introduced me to them, and I loved it, but I was nine years old at the time and I had no idea they weren't a "new" band in 1997 until that Xmas my parents picked up the debut for me as a gift. I bought the albums in consecutive order after falling in love with the debut and this was always my least favourite. It sounded too polished, too glossy, too conventional for my ears then.

It wasn't until I was a bit older I realised how wonderful this actually is. Some of the lyrics on this album are devastating, Wheeler's performances on this are incredible, and as puffin points out this is an immaculate sounding album. I missed this poll and I'm sad to see "When I'm Thinking About You" get zero votes, which is the rare thing of a song about contentment and comfort that doesn't sound smug or arrogant.

Fine post, boxedjoy. Love "When I'm Thinking About You." I actively love pretty much all of these, to the extent that it's difficult to vote for one over another.

I think as well this is an album that really only makes sense as an adult. What this album does is explore feelings in a way that only makes sense if you've had that experience of eg grief on "Cry," seeing a major news as history-in-the-making on "Mononchrome," the blissful contentment on "When I'm Thinking About You" etc

Love "When I'm Thinking About You."

Yeah it is a mark of how solid this album is that even all the zero vote songs are great. That moment in “Folk Song” when Wheeler unexpectedly extends the chorus and sings “watch it ‘til it dies, slow falling from the sky…”

Blind reminds me a bit of Blue Bell Knoll: gorgeous surfaces, but it’s like the band wasn’t terribly interested in writing songs per se (some of them are great songs anyway, but it’s as if the band was just in the habit of writing well rather than consciously aiming for it), and a lot of it kind of blurs together for me in a nice way.

By contrast, Static and Silence feels very composed (notwithstanding that some of the songs end quite suddenly, as if the band became impatient with whatever point they thought the song was making), like they carefully worked up each song, then sat down and considered what sort of arrangement would best complement the song’s vibe and give it a distinct air.