Like Star Wars (but actually before Lucas did it), The Stranglers identified this album as “Stranglers IV” even though it’s their debut album. I think this, and The Raven, are probably my favourite Stranglers albums and, yes, this is one I used to own before I cleared out a large chunk of my physical media (I have nothing on which to play CDs any more anyway).
I'd never really noticed before, but there’s a strong Doors influence, especially on keyboardist Dave Greenfield whose organ sounds wander throughout tracks like Sometimes, Hanging Around, and Get A Grip On Yourself like those of The Doors' Ray Manzarek. The most Doors-like track of them all is Princess Of The Streets, with Hugh Cornwell’s vocals sounding the most like Jim Morisson on the entire album.
But as notable as Greenfield is to The Stranglers’ sound, its Jean-Jacques Burnel’s menacing and muddy basslines that really drive the songs and give them a darker, punkier feel compared to The Doors. He even gives a reggae feel to the celebration of beach lechery that is Peaches, while at the end of the Down In The Sewer suite, he and Greenfield go utterly wild, with Jet Black powering through on the drums, a rather glorious climax to the album.
There’s a dark wit running through their lyrics as well; the cynical misanthropy (and misogyny) of late Seventies British music, but also somewhat self-deprecating so we’re never entirely sure if they’re being serious or not. Ugly, for example, has the lyric “I guess I shouldn't have strangled her to death, but I had to go to work and she had laced my coffee with acid”. When the voyeuristic narrator of Peaches is waxing lyrical about the women in bikinis, it walks a fine line between parody and celebration. Is the song mocking the narrator as a bit of a creep, or does it agree with him? When the narrator of Ugly declares that “It’s different for Jews somehow”, again are the Stranglers expecting us to agree with anti-Semitic sentiment or is it hyperbole to demonstrate that the narrator’s thesis – that you can get the women if you’re ugly, but wealthy – is flawed? If you take the album as a whole, the sense that I came away with is that they err on the side of satire, that you probably shouldn't take them at face value or they'll make fun of you too.
And that mix of dark and light is one of the reasons that I like this album. That and the tunes are good.
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