The Splendour of Fear [Original recording reissued]

Centrepiece has to be "The Stagnant Pool". A ten minute tone poem to melancholy containing a musical interlude of such beauty and power to move the hardest meathead.

This first iteration of Felt - Deebank left in 1985 - looked back to the Velvets and to Crowley and forward to the the hapless C86 brigade through the Smiths, Cocteaus Twins and onto post rock like Tortoise and Mogwai. Criminally ignored and often derided in their prime, its time the world finally listened.

Here we get a lot of the same strange musical textures and hypnotic arrangements from the first album, but with a sense of pop-sophistication entering the equation in preparation for the albums to come, with the production of John A. Rivers sounding much clearer and slightly more polished... albeit, by Felt standards. It would eventually take the production genius of John Leckie on their next album to really make the band sparkle, but they're certainly approaching that level of greatness here. The album is largely instrumental, which is fine by me, Felt produced some of the most dazzling instrumentals this side of neo-classicists like Michael Nyman and Phillip Glass (hardly a stretch given the divine minimalism of many of the songs here), with Lawrence appearing vocally on only two tracks... the gorgeous indie-pop of The World is a Soft as Lace and the dreamlike swirl of The Stagnant Pool (which finds Lawrence droning his melancholic musings over the introduction... before the song takes off into the same epic instrumental territory as the rest of the album).

This period of Felt (1981-1985) is probably my favourite, with the later move to creation in 86 bringing with it a greater confidence in production and a more polished sound (although there's no denying the greatness of albums like Forever Breathes..., Poem of the River and Me and a Monkey on the Moon). Here, the group dynamic was simply astounding, with the compositions building on the hypnotising rhythm-section of drummer Garry Ainge and bassist Mick Lloyd (who would be subject to change), which was then complimented by the actual song-rhythm by Lawrence (and performed in his classic-jangly-strum), which was then taken even further by the complex lead-guitar melodies of Maurice Deebank. As a performer, Deebank is as great (if not greater) than other guitarists of the 80's indie scene - like Vini Reilly and Johnny Marr - with Felt occupying that special place halfway between that of The Durutti Column and The Smiths.

Felt are really one of the great bands of the 80's... and one sadly neglected in these days of disposable corporate indie (...there are, of course, exceptions). This is one of the highlights of their great, if somewhat short career, and is one of those albums that makes perfect blue-Monday listening (when it's raining outside, and everyone seems to be having a much better time that you) or for those late night moments of quiet reflection. If you already own their most well-know album, Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, then this will be indispensable addition to your collection. Similarly, if you can find the time for artists like The Smiths, The Wedding Present, Television, The Auteurs or albums like You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, Vauxhall and I, England Made Me and LC, then you can find it in your heart to love Felt.