Cold Phoenix: Your Eyes Are My Eyes 12"

Cold Phoenix: Your Eyes Are My Eyes 12” (General Population) Fan club reissue of this obscure Italian post-punk / darkwave 12” EP, originally released (in a presumably very small edition) in 1985. Maybe the European darkwave heads knew about Cold Phoenix already (someone out there is driving the original pressing’s price into the several-hundred-dollars range), but this was new to me when this version arrived on Sorry State’s doorstep. While this originally came out in 1985, it reminds me of the UK bands releasing records a few years earlier, in that period when the post-punk pendulum was swinging away from the avant-garde and toward the more commercial. Your Eyes Are My Eyes has similar vibe to records like Sad Lovers and Giants’ Epic Garden Music, the Chameleons’ Script of the Bridge, Modern English’s Mesh & Lace, and the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds and Faith, with a balance of dour atmosphere, post-punk propulsion, and pop sensibility. The clear but unpolished recording and sprightly tempos make for high punker appeal, and since it’s only an EP, there’s no opportunity for the energy to lag. If I put this on the turntable, it’s going to get flipped several times before I’m ready to move on. The quality of this fan club issue is also notable, with great sound, sharp reproduction of the artwork, color vinyl, and the addition of two excellent studio tracks from the 2009 CD reissue, bumping the original’s four tracks to six. If you go deep with gloomy post-punk, I’d snatch this up quickly before it’s gone.