For years the first three classic albums of The Comsat Angels have been hard to find. There have been cd reissues in 1995, but in insufficient quantities, so nowadays you have to pay a small fortune to buy them at auction sites.
But now there is a new boxset called “It’s History”, which contains the three albums + a bonus disc with rare material. The albums are:
– Waiting For A Miracle (1980)
– Sleep No More (1981)
– Fiction (1982)
The box is released by a label unknown to me, called Nano. It’s a limited and handnumbered edition of 2000 copies. The bonus disc contains nine outtakes recorded before their first album. “It’s History” comes in a special black box with black artwork, black cd’s and complete lyrics.
The Comsat Angels was a band from Sheffield, with singer Stephen Fellows. They can be compared to contemporary acts like Joy Division, The Chameleons, The Sound and Echo and the Bunnymen. They were always labeled as promising and praised by critics, but never achieved real big success, partly due to misfortune with record labels. In The Netherlands they were relatively succesful, in the early 80’s there even was a Dutch-only compilation called “Enz.” And in 1994 “Unravelled” appeared, with acoustic Dutch radio sessions.
And I can’t stand up and I can’t sit down, ’cause a great a big problem stopped me in my tracks. I can’t relax because I haven’t done a thing and I can’t do a thing because I can’t relax. – Independence Day