“ALMA MATER”, the first and only full length studio album recorded during THE STOCKHOLM MONSTERS lifetime, had a lengthy and difficult birth: finally arriving in August 1984, well over two years after their debut single, “Fairy Tales.”
Hindsight – and the band’s relatively weak earlier output – would suggest Factory were right in dithering about allowing the band to record before this time and by Autumn 1983, the line up that would make “Alma Mater” had convened, with the arrival of guitarist John Rhodes adding some requisite muscle.
So, in many respects, “Alma Mater” (Latin trans = “Bounteous Mother”) is the most consistent of LTM’s excellent new programme, showcasing a band far more at ease with their abilities to make a telling – and unashamed – pop album.
Decamping to stalwart Factory stamping ground Strawberry Studios with the omnipresent Peter Hook in the producer’s chair, the MONSTERS emerged in the summer of 1984 with a record light years ahead of their sketchy early singles and one (which potentially) could proffer several successful singles.
The reality was somewhat different, unfortunately, with “Alma Mater” inevitably only making friends with the lower end of the Indie Charts. Eighteen years on, however, it’s still user-friendly and steeped in presence, with tracks like “Terror” – bright and breezy, despite the title – “Where I Belong” and “Winter” (check out that growling bassline!) all exercises in clear-headed accessibility.
Actually, the whole thing’s such a seamless listen you hardly notice the segue between the great “Life’s Two Faces” and the ensuing “Your Uniform” the first couple of times. However, the STOCKHOLM MONSTERS’ uplifting melancholy still enters the fray (in spite of themselves?) on tracks like “E.W” (Edgar Wallace, fact fans!) and “To Look At Her”; this latter finding Tony France visiting the mountains of madness with his vocal rising to a frenzied peak.
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Indeed, France’s singing had come on in leaps and bounds by this time and stamps its’ authority all over “Alma Mater”, although it’s difficult to refute the uncanny PETER GABRIEL comparisons. The one sad note is that trumpeter Lindsay Anderson would quit shortly after the LP’s release. Her distant melodic interruptions were crucial to the plot in this reviewer’s opinion.
“Alma Mater – Plus” now comes with a clutch of highly relevant additional tracks, not least the “All At Once”/ “National Pastime” single – recorded at the album sessions, but left off with typical Factory perversity – plus the (previously unreleased) snappier 7” mixes of the ace “How Corrupt Is Rough Trade?” and “Kan Kill”; tracks from the 1987 “Partyline” 12-inch and to fill out the complete picture, there are unsegued versions of “Your Uniform” and “Life’s Two Faces”, benefiting from marginally different mixes, especially “Life’s Two Faces”, to these ears spacier and more effective.
Now digitally remastered and an hour in duration, “Alma Mater – Plus” renovates an unfairly decaying back page of the Factory storybook. In THE STOCKHOLM MONSTERS’ hands, the English translation of the album’s title seems wholly accurate.
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