a legal matter

By rights Mark Burgess and The Chameleons should be consulting their lawyers. Their sound has been ripped off wholesale by Interpol and Editors and passed off as cutting edge alternative guitar rock. It's all there, the delayed guitar riffs, the anguished delivery, the sixth form poetry and the sucked cheek posturing. The Chameleons got there first and deserve their place in the sun.

The Chameleons- Don't Fall


I guess this stuff is the eighties equivalent of pomp rock. Their songs can meander in a windswept and interesting fashion but the influence of post-punk is there in the edgy guitar sounds. Mark Burgess always sounded vaguely 'upset', north Manchester can't have been much fun in 1983. The Chameleons are often held up as one of those 'they could have been huge' bands which always makes them seem more mysterious than contemporaries like U2. If you like a bit of earnest, furrowed browed seriousness then The Chameleons are the band for you. Their album covers are hilarious.

The Chameleons- Second Skin


The debut album Script for the Bridge is the one to buy

They released an album and toured a couple of years ago, I saw them at York Fibbers where they were mesmerizing. There is a website here