Search - Comsat Angels :: My Mind's Eye

Near the apex for the decade

Stephen Saunders | O'CONNOR, ACT Australia | 07/13/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 1992 album came out of the blue sky after a six-year, seemingly final, silence from Stephen Fellows' band. Fellows rates this his favourite Comsats album, although The Glamour (1995) runs it close. Even more, it is one of the lasting rock albums of the decade. Let's hope that, like the Notorious Byrd Bros, it always remains in print. Guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, rather than 12-stringer Roger McGuinn, is probably Fellows' mainman, but here he summed up his space fascinations to produce the perfect companion piece for McGuinn's Space Odyssey: 'I, I come from the sun/I've looked everywhere but you're the one/You you fascinate me/I whisper your name and you are gone/In fiery arms Andromeda will take you far beyond the mortal sea of storms/In winter constellations ever wander and never go home'.This is a typically classical script from one of the outstandingly original writers in rock, the only man ever to work the words 'event horizon' and 'deliquesce' successfully into pop songs. And such music, Fellows doing falling leaves and wintry soul vocals, bathed in the bleak galactic warmth of Andy Peake's swirling keyboard fills. Other rainy mood pieces, like Shiva Descending, feature the prettiest keyboard flourishes you can imagine. Field of Tall Flowers, and Always Near, are uncharacteristically heady nectars of love. My Mind's Eye, and Beautiful Monster, are contrasting off-the-wall pieces, where Mik Glaisher can be the best drummer in the world (as usual) and Fellows gets to show off that post-Hendrix guitar wizardry. Topping it all off is an insprired variation on a 1986 piece, Carried Away. This time Fellows makes it as simple and eternal as a child's nursery song: 'As I look upwards at the dreaming sky I can't help thinking sometimes/If you can hear me just tell me so for I'd give anything to know/And all the stars they shine so bright are you out there tonight'.The lyrics channel familiar introspections of the soul and the 'dreaming sky' has been dreamt before. But the band's unexpected alchemies lend each song an emotional lustre and transcendence rarely heard in rock music. Sure, the band stuck together for 17 years, but they were so good that you are forever wishing 'just one more time'. Well, that was The Glamour, and it seems there is no more. [Adapted from my piece in Juke National Rock Weekly, Melbourne, Australia, March 6 1993]"

A Fine Comeback Record

Thomas Horan | Chapel Hill, NC | 05/28/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'm delighted to see that this solid, alternative, guitar rock album is back in print. The music itself is excellent, though this time around the vocals don't quite do the songs justice. Stephen Fellows sings about an octave higher than on the classic records and this makes his voice sound a bit whiney. He also made the mistake of trading in the cold wave lyrics of alienation that characterized his early work for trite platitudes (for example: Driving, And All The Stars) and fanciful musings (I Come From The Sun, Shiva Descending). But the songwriting mostly eclipses these deficiencies. Be aware that this is a domestic reissue of the first UK edition of this record. The original US version, credited to the C.S. Angels, contains two wonderful bonus tracks (presumably non-album singles) for a total of 12 songs. Since the price of this CD is a bit high anyway, you may as well seek out and buy the augmented version. The Comsat Angels' ultimate material can only be found on the highly sought after first three albums (Waiting For A Miracle, Sleep No More, and Fiction) and their BBC collection, Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones. Bootlegs surface occasionally, but official CD copies of these recordings are insanely rare and expensive. That said, anyone (myself included) who has heard this early post-punk material will tell you that whatever you have to pay for it, it is worth every single penny."