FIRST IMPRESSIONS - Sprouts

Though I do not profess to being obsessed with the band, the release of Swoon hit me like no other recording had, or has done since. This was something special, a new and invigorating departure which hit where it hurt. The album has always meant something special to me. Probably because so few people within my circle of friends had ever heard of them, I truly felt the band were mine, a special secret I shared with a comparable few, that this group were formidable.
 
I preferred Swoon to Steve McQueen simply because I felt that, compared to Swoon, the latter appeared too over-produced. Since that initial feeling, it didn't take long to realise that this too was another special delivery.
 
After initially trying to get hold of Protest Songs after seeing a quite an emotional gig by the band at Cardiff University (I believe it must have been the Two Wheels Good Tour in 1985), I found my luck was out.
 
Despite there being a relatively small crowd at the concert I believed it was Paddy who told me after that he was very pleased and surprised at the reception the band got.
 
Anyway, I felt Protest Songs was a little of a let down when I finally got a copy, and although Langley Park made good listening it didn't have the bite of the first two albums, I feel.
 
Despite what you may think by what I have said, Prefab Sprout still remain the only band I would join and endless queue to obtain tickets for, and your optimistic news that Paddy is contemplating going out with the band, possibly to coincide with the new album is very heatening.
 
But I don't think to my dying day I'll hear a song as potent as Cruel.
 
Richard Arquati (in a letter to John Birch in June 1990)