THE STRANGLERS: FELINE 40th ANNIVERSARY REISSUE.

 

1983. The Stranglers, the glowering meninblack of punk, had bounced back from commercial oblivion in 1982 with the gentle psychedelia of the single ‘Golden Brown’, confounding all their detractors by reaching Number 2 in the Top Forty. I’m still convinced that if The Jam hadn’t released ‘A Town Called Malice’, which went straight in at Number 1, The Stranglers would have taken the hallowed top spot.

Not everyone was happy with their new lease of commercial life, though. When I say everyone, I mean the people still stuck in 1977-78 who wished the band were still making records which had the melodic attack of ‘Get A Grip On Yourself’ and ‘No More Heroes’. And by everyone, I mean a lot of my friends who, along with me, were just discovering music. They knew what they liked, and they didn’t want it to change.

The thing is, The Stranglers’ music had always evolved. If you listen attentively, the No More Heroes album is a step on from the band’s debut Rattus Norvegicus, with more sophisticated musical arrangements. Black and White, the third LP, builds on that with truly avant garde song structures and subject matter. Some people (i.e. lazy journalists) credit the next album, The Raven, as the musical watershed, but it had been a cumulative process over the previous three albums that produced such seminal examples of The Stranglers’ catalogue as the title track, ‘Duchess’ and ‘Don’t Bring Harry’. The latter was particularly notable, as it was the first time the band had recorded with acoustic instruments.

Punks didn’t do that, of course. At least, that was the view of the unenlightened. At this time, my contemporaries and I were largely unaware that David Bowie wasn’t confined to one musical style, moving effortlessly from the glam rock of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (1972) to, within a couple of albums, the “plastic soul” of Young Americans (1975). It was just something Bowie did, as did flamboyant rockers Queen, over two singles moving from rock and roll – ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ – to disco – ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ (both 1980). Given that, it’s highly ironic that, at that time, some people were resistant to change within what was supposed to the most artistically free musical movement of all – punk/New Wave.

Which brings us to Feline. It says a lot that The Stranglers’ seventh studio album was the LP that broke them across Europe, selling better than it did in the UK. Jet Black, the band’s innovative drummer, had discovered electronic drums, while front men Hugh Cornwell and Jean Jacques Burnel hung up their electric guitar and bass in favour of bespoke acoustic replacements. Allied to keyboard player Dave Greenfield’s increasing use of synthesisers, then becoming affordable and more accessible, the result was a dark, melancholy, part electronic, part acoustic soundscape that appealed to a European sensibility. The raucous ‘Something Better Change’ it wasn’t.

So, back in Blighty, accusations of “selling out” were flying around, mainly in the New Musical Express, whose editorial policy towards The Stranglers was one of point-blank hatred (to be fair, Burnel had beaten up one of their journalists, which hadn’t been the wisest career move). Other critics, notably in Melody Maker and Record Mirror, appreciated the discovery of a more melodic side to the band – which, if you’d be listening properly, had always been there: on their first album, ‘Princess of the Streets’ stands out as a sad, loping waltz, while on Black and White you’ll find the swooping, carousel keyboards of ‘Outside Tokyo’.

Feline was a conundrum. The gentle, introspective lyrics are far and away the most literate of the Cornwell-fronted incarnation of The Stranglers, dwelling on the vagaries of human nature: romantic obsession, the transitory nature of relationships, defining moments in life, memory. The music that went with them was more problematic, and you’re reading the words of someone who loved the band’s most musically extreme record, The Gospel According to the Meninblack (1981). The music wasn’t extreme at all: gone was the propulsive, bass driven, Hammond organ urgency of old: the new Stranglers sound was unhurried, reflective, elegiac almost. I did notice, though, that ‘The European Female’, the first single, is basically Meninblack’s ‘Thrown Away’ speeded up with Burnel’s sweet, breathy vocals replacing his Lee Marvin-esque delivery on the earlier single. The new sound took some getting used to, and for some people, this is where they and The Stranglers parted company. I stayed the course and, all these years later, I’m glad I did.

Listening to the magnificent 2023 reissue, I’m struck by how timeless Feline is. It’s worn very well, which is maybe why BMG went to town on this re-release, including a second disc with the single edits of ‘… Female’, ‘Midnight Summer Dream’, ‘Paradise’, the fantastic 12-inch version of ‘… Dream’, B-sides, the delightfully portentous ‘Aural Sculpture Manifesto’ and triumphant live versions of ‘… Female’ and ‘… Dream’, recorded on the European leg of the Feline tour.

I’ll be playing with this excellent, life affirming – yes, life affirming – package for some time.