Static and Silence
The Sundays
1997: David Geffen Company DGCD-25131
“Another Flavour” is definitely my delight on this album, with the gorgeously complicated “Your Eyes” with its major/minor interplay and “She” as worthy runners-up. For that matter, “I Can’t Wait” recaptures some of the sonic imagery of their first album even as it brings in birdsong and horns, and somehow it all still does work.
Thanks to my friend/coworker Shaw, I saw The Sundays on the Seattle date of their tour in support of this album. It was strange, because the venue (The Moore) is quite an intimate space but the band’s audio setup was evidently designed for stadiums; because of this we had an awkward situation in which the audience were having to cover their ears to hear the music, and after an early song ended and technical difficulties were being addressed, Harriet had to make chitchat with the crowd, and lord knows no microphones were needed on either side of the footlights.
They were very, very good in concert, by the way. But The Sundays certainly seem to me to be a band most suited to studio recordings: it’s not that they can’t deliver in person, but I’d say their sound is at its finest when presented so purely as they have done on their records.
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.