The Album Club choice for February comes courtesy of Ian (Ian7633) with The Stranglers' 'Black and White'. As always please listen to the album in its entirety before you comment and/or vote.

The Stranglers - 'Black and White'





The album I've chosen for this months Album Club is Black and White by The Stranglers. It was released in 1978 hot on the heels of No More Heroes, a very tough act to follow. Initial impressions were not great, being compared to the previous album which was harder and had a much more rough feeling to it. However as the years passed Black and White was judged on it's own merits and was the first indications of the bands move away from their early punk sound to a more melodic feel, it still has plenty of grunt but the crashing bass of Jean Jaques Burnell and Dave Greenfields overpowering keyboards were toned down allowing Hugh Cornwall's guitar skills more to the fore.
The album that came after Black and White, The Raven (which I queued for hours for outside HMV just to get the 3D sleeve version), was very different, proving Black and White was a real stepping stone for the band.

The first track, Tank, has the familiar fast pace of older songs and the second track, Nice and sleazy, has a properly grimy feel to it. Outside Tokyo is totally different, almost whimsical. Sweden is a very musical track and on the later remastered version of the album the extra tracks include Sverige, Sweden sung in Swedish. Also in the extras is a rather different version of Walk on by, well worth a listen.

I hope you like this album, it's one of my favourites.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5PfI1x0Rub41UUeLEksUCU