Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of the Liverpool band's 1982 album. The bonus CD includes non-album tracks, radio sessions and more.
Like fellow Liverpudlians O.M.D., China Crisis began life as a synthetic duo who performed brilliantly executed pop songs with quirky edges. And like O.M.D., they seamlessly mixed their love of guitar-based pop with (then) modern musical technology (i.e., synthesizers). Unlike O.M.D., China Crisis' legacy languishes somewhere between there and then with no sign of them ever being considered "hip." Not to say that that is their fault! Gary Daly (the quirky vocalist/keyboardist) and Eddie Lundon (the smooth vocalist/guitarist) made their fascinating debut, Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms…

Demon are often the subject of hot debate whenever the New Wave of British Heavy Metal is discussed: are they or aren't they supposed to be cited alongside the likes of Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard, as a rejuvenating force in the evolution of heavy metal? After all, their debut album, Night of the Demon, had shown that the Staffordshire quintet were far more indebted to Britain's heavyweights of melodic hard rock, like UFO and Thin Lizzy, than full-fledged heavy metal titans Black Sabbath or Judas Priest.

Judas Priest rebounded from the shaky Point of Entry with Screaming for Vengeance, arguably the strongest album of their early-'80s commercial period. Having moved a bit too far into simplistic hard rock, Vengeance found the band refocusing on heavy metal, and achieving a greater balance between commercialism and creativity. The results were catchy and accessible, yet harder-hitting, and without the awkwardly apparent calculation that informed the weakest moments of the album's two predecessors. Ultimately, Screaming for Vengeance hangs together better than even the undeniable landmark British Steel, both thematically and musically.

Anyone's Daughter was a late-'70s, early-'80s symphonic prog rock band heavily influenced by Genesis as well as by German bands such as Elroy and Grobschnitt. After breaking up in the mid-'80s, the group reformed in 2000. Consisting of Uwe Karpa (guitars), Matthias Ulmer (keyboards, vocals), Harald Bareth (bass, lead vocals), and Kono Konopik (drums), Anyone's Daughter was formed in 1978. Their first record, Adonis (1979), featured English vocals, epic tracks with reflective and aggressive moments, and a prominent keyboard sound with heavy use of Moogs in particular. Anyone's Daughter (1980) found the band moving towards shorter material, but 1981's Piktors Verwandlungen, on which the band first sang in German, was their most experimental work…

The Hunter is the sixth studio album by American band Blondie, released in May 1982. It was Blondie's last album of new material until 1999's No Exit. It was recorded in December 1981. The Hunter, as stated in the press release, is loosely a concept album based on the theme of "searching, hunting. or pursuing one's own Mt. Everest." Tracks on the album include Jimmy Destri's Motown pastiche "Danceway", while "Dragonfly" has a science-fiction theme to its lyrics about a race in space. "The Beast" deals with Deborah Harry's experiences of becoming a public figure: "I am the centre of attraction, by staying off the streets".

As good mods, the Jam always had a healthy respect for R&B and soul - even the first album featured the revved-up Northern soul of "Non-Stop Dancing." With The Gift, however, Paul Weller seems to have become completely absorbed in it, and more specifically, in Stax-style soul with more than a hint of psychedelia à la "Psychedelic Shack." An uneven album marked by overindulgences like the instrumental "Circus" and unnecessarily long songs, The Gift still has no shortage of terrific songs, like the simply sublime "Ghost," "Town Called Malice" (the hit), and the funk workout of "Precious." Weller can obviously do "soulful" - his voice has never sounded better - but unfortunately, The Gift, with its excesses and marginal tracks, doesn't show his talents in the proper light. Points for ambition, but ultimately, this is their least consistent effort since This Is the Modern World.

Blancmange's first album, 1982's Happy Families, yielded the minor radio hit "Living on the Ceiling," which also received a good deal of attention from early MTV. Though Happy Families can accurately be described as techno-pop, it's techno-pop with a modicum of taste and sophistication, putting it more in the ballpark of genre pioneers like OMD and Yazoo than of annoying '80s anachronisms like Kajagoogoo or EBN-OZN. Neil Arthur's lyrics are interesting enough to reward close listening, and his Bowie-esque voice, while somewhat limited, serves the material well. The sound of Happy Families is built largely around synthesizers, played by Arthur and partner Stephen Luscombe. The duo have a knack for catchy basslines and drum programming, on top of which they strategically deploy guitars, Eastern instrumentation, and female backing vocals…

Demon are often the subject of hot debate whenever the New Wave of British Heavy Metal is discussed: are they or aren't they supposed to be cited alongside the likes of Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard, as a rejuvenating force in the evolution of heavy metal? After all, their debut album, Night of the Demon, had shown that the Staffordshire quintet were far more indebted to Britain's heavyweights of melodic hard rock, like UFO and Thin Lizzy, than full-fledged heavy metal titans Black Sabbath or Judas Priest. But, then again, so were Def Leppard! And, in any case, this debate would not find easy answers in Demon's second long player, 1982's The Unexpected Guest.

When they recorded the follow-up to their surprisingly successful debut, the members of Visage appeared to be dealing from a position of strength. But the dance club-fueled, style-obsessed new romantic movement that had propelled the group to success in England was already crumbling, and frontman Steve Strange had begun to take his role as the movement's figurehead a little too seriously. The Anvil, rumored to be the subject of a multi-million dollar feature film (a project that never materialized), emphasizes Strange's penchant for melancholy and melodrama. Where the band's debut undercut such pretensions with humorous tracks like the twangy "Malpaso Man," only one tune here - "Night Train," with a rubbery bassline and blasts of brass backing a tongue-in-cheek tale of intrigue - dares to take liberties with Visage's moody image…