Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world is a very different place to yesterday, so imagine how dissimilar it must feel to February 2004 on the eve of The Stranglers making a dramatic statement as they returned after six years away from the studio with the incredibly direct and musically thrilling Norfolk Coast.
If yesterday was different, then imagine how tomorrow must look, and that is the point of being able to finally hear the band as they release the album on vinyl for the first time; for whilst times change and alter in out perception, a moment of elegance and class is timeless.
The album perhaps may have been a surprise at the time, after more than a decade since Hugh Cornwell had left the band, and Paul Roberts had stepped into the fray, the thought of a brand-new recording seemed as likely as the sun rising in the west. It depends on how you view these things; it could be argued that if we looked at the situation with the mirrors of hindsight firmly in our grasp then such things can be seen as physically possible.
The 2023 vinyl issue has been worth the long wait, it is every bit as relevant today as it was when the century was in its infancy, when it had suffered the abuse of terrorism on a scale unthought of, when the response was swift, unforgiving, and uncalled for, and we still live in those mad times, we still inhabit the difference as if we were living under a cloud that never moved, never seeing the sun that bathes the beaches of the Norfolk Coast.
From the sheer strength, the chest puffed out, the abs of lyrics and notes combining together in the robust form of Big Thing Coming, Norfolk Coast declares its intention, a reminder that punk never does, and that which inhabits the realm of the Progressive can be seen as holding the sands of time, thought washed away by the storm, in their hands.
It could be argued that the seismic change in the band’s fortunes stemmed from the introduction of Baz Warne to the fold, The Men in Black adding a new writer of the gospel to their ranks, and one to whom would play an important and vital part in their resurgence in the conscious of the national appetite for honest and vigorous, forceful music.
The album does not compare itself to the either of the previous incarnations, it simply lives and breathes its own fire, it has the raw energy for sure of the group’s crusading period of their opening albums, but it now inhabited a space that would be seen as crucially new, a point made clear as Paul Roberts was to depart on the eve of the gig at the Bilston Robin a couple of years later.
Timeless, but coast lines change, perhaps more so than ever with rapid fury, and as tracks such as I’ve Been Wild, the fantastic Lost Control, Tucker’s Grave, the stout but chic Dutch Moon, and Long Black Veil, Jet Black, Dave Geenfield, Jean-Jaques Burnel, Baz Warne, Paul Roberts, and a tremendous violin solo from John Sevink, capture the mood of difference with fantastic fortitude and a kick up the backside to the ignorant.
The Norfolk Coast, a place of mystery and myth, now forever shrouded in musical beauty as The Stranglers landed on the 21st Century with an army of fans ready to wage war on indifference and the desperation of triviality.
Ian D. Hall