A band that I’ve been aware of for some time but never got around to exploring until now is The Chameleons, a post-punk group from the 80s that at the time would have been orbiting in the same territory as the usual bevy of acts from that period that get typically name-checked: The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division and U2

I’m not sure what has made me take notice of them as references to the group seem to be few and far between, but in the last couple of weeks I finally decided to get amongst their stuff and started listening to their debut album Script of the Bridge (1983), which so far has been excellent listening.

For me what sets these guys apart is a significantly more expansive sound than many of their contemporaries – at times even rivaling some of Johnny Marr’s sonic orchestrations thanks to guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding making use of their guitars to provide a combined assault of textures. This combined with Mark Burgess’ rather passionate and occasionally frenetic vocals makes for a sound of its own, despite the many similarities they might have shared with groups of their time.

Enough rambling, here are a couple of tracks off their aforementioned Script of the Bridge album. See what you think.

• Don’t Fall
  Track 1 from the album. Opens with a vocal sample which interestingly got re-sampled by Way Out West on a track from their Don’t Look Now LP. I can only assume they took it from this track as no-one seems to know where it originally came from.
• Up The Down Escalator
  I think this might have been my first exposure to the group thanks to Steven Drozd’s compilation for LateNightTales (which is a pretty good mixtape by the way)