Great junk! It's the Psychedelic Furs!

The Psychedelic Furs : India

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On March 7, 1980 The Psychedelic Furs released their self-titled debut album produced by Steve Lillywhite. Most of the UK press heaped praise on the band with its dragged-out-of-bed vocalist Richard Butler and its Roxy Music pretensions, which you hear most clearly in the slow building opening track "India". The album peaked at #18 in the UK and #140 in the US. 

Red Starr of Smash Hits gave the album an 8 out of 10 writing:

Like Gary Numan and Simple Minds the Furst take various obvious influences (Velvet Underground, Bowie) weave them together adding something of their own and emerge with something individual and really good. This darkly atmospheric album combines a nice raw edge with energy, melody and some nice jangly guitar and distinctive hoarse sax. A little thin in places, but mostly highly enjoyable. Definitely a name to watch.

From Robert Christgau of the Village Voice, a grade of A-. He writes:

They're a posthippie band who satirize hippie fatuousness as well as a punk-era band who send up anti-hippie orthodoxy, but I love them for simpler reasons: they're great junk and they sound like the Sex Pistols. Richard Butler's phrasing and intonation owe so much to Johnny Rotten's scabrous caterwaul that he's got to be kidding and ripping him off simultaneously, and the calculated rave-ups recall the overall effect sought by the punk godfathers, who were always somewhat grander than their speedy, compulsively crude epigones. That's what makes the Furs great junk--it can't be great unless the possibility remains that it's really pretentious.

Rolling Stone's David Fricke was less impressed, writing:

Despite the evocative implications of their name, the Psychedelic Furs prove to be neither here (the Eighties) nor there (the Sixties). In trying to bridge the gap between the inspired amateur expansiveness of the Doors-Velvet Underground scene and the bored, bitter thrash of British punk, this English sextet comes up straight Seventies: a stormy marriage of Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie and (thanks to Duncan Kilburn's abrasive sax) garage-band Roxy Music. 

 The Furs are most dramatic when they start bouncing off the walls of their self-created purgatory in the sarcastic, Velvets-style bash "We Love You" and the spooky, exotic "India," with its propulsive rhythm track and rippling guitar harmonics à la Public Image Ltd. Elsewhere, these guys trip up (instead of out) in their hopelessly formless songs and the excessive, David Bowie-cum-Johnny Rotten vocal posturing of Richard Butler, who usually sounds as though he has a sore throat. Until they get their decades and priorities right, the Psychedelic Furs will continue to promise far more than they deliver.

The Psychedelic Furs unleash the phasers on "Sister Europe"

The Psychedelic Furs : Sister Europe

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On the cusp between January and February of 1980, The Psychedelic Furs released "Sister Europe". It was produced by Steve Lillywhite who found a unique way to get Richard Butler to deliver his languid vocal performance. "He told me, 'Go down to the pub, have a couple of beers, and when you come back, I want you to sing like it's three in the morning, and you're talking on the telephone to someone'". Butler says the song is about a girlfriend who moved to Italy.

Sounds wrote the song had... 

"...a calculated power that has sheds of Roxy Music in their early days. There's more phasing in three minutes than I've heard in the last five years. Not smart enough to be a hit but the steady, deliberate guitar chimes work their way around your skull with gnawing effectiveness."

David Hepworth of Smash Hits wrote 

David Bowie impersonations again. The music is good and definitely unusual. Most original name award goes to this lot for sure. Strangely impressive. Give it a try, if you're kind, it won't bite.

"Sister Europe" only charted in Australia ( at #100) and in New Zealand ( #47).

The B-side, "****", is an irregular one to be sure. Like "Revolution #9", a paste up job you may not want to hear more than once.

Interesting timing: The Psychedelic Furs have announced they will release their eighth studio album — the band’s first record in 29 years — this spring. The 12-track collection is preceded by the single “Don’t Believe.” :

Like Smoke in the Air

The Psychedelic Furs : Imitation of Christ

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On July 25, 1979 radio listeners heard The Psychedelic Furs in a Peel Session recorded nine months before they would release their debut album. All four songs they played would wind up on the album, including "Imitation of Christ", "Sister Europe" and their first single "We Love You". Peel explains that he invited the band after listening to 491 demo tapes over a weekend. He must have been taken by the band's ability to merge the Velvets, Bowie and Roxy influences into one brand new sound. The version of "Imitation of Christ" here is especially good, sounding better than the one Steve Lillywhite produced, and with old lyrics about a guy who dances in a bar. The Furs weren't playing gigs at the time of the radio performance because they had lost a drummer. Peel put out a call for a new drummer. Vince Ely would soon save the day.