The Saints : Swing for the Crime
In October of 1978, The Saints released Prehistoric Sounds, their third album and, according to no less an authority than Go Between Robert Forster, their best. As bored with punk rocks as the Eternally Yours single "Know Your Product" suggested, The Saints recorded a hybrid album of punk and soul. It works better than you'd guess, especially with the big ballsy brass interjections, but sales were lacking and Harvest dropped the band.
"I think there are a few good songs on that album," says singer Chris Bailey. " But it feels stilted in places, it sounds like a record made by a band falling apart, and sure enough soon after recording the album, the line-up of the band changed quite drastically."
Bailey would keep the name, but guitarist Ed Kuepper went back to Australia to form The Laughing Clowns while bassist Algy Ward joined The Damned.
As the years have passed, more critics have agreed with Forster, including critic Clinton Walker who writes "an extraordinary record - one of the period's best bar none - a brooding, melancholic collision of electrically charged rock balladry and swooping, brassy arrangements. Broadly misunderstood, it meant nothing to no-one."
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