Spandau Ballet have a new box set out in September and from it have dropped a previously-unreleased early song.
Eyes was recorded in 1979 while the band were still under their old name, Gentry, before the future broadcaster and style guru Robert Elms gave them the name Spandau Ballet. It’s in their early New Romantic style, but was left off their 1981 debut album Journeys To Glory.
In a statement, songwriter Gary Kemp said of Eyes: “(It’s) one of the early songs that I wrote with the synthesiser. It’s kind of gothic post-punk. It suits what was going on at the time with Joy Division, Siouxsie and Magazine. We liked the dirty garage quality of that period.
"We had all been brought up on guitar riffs and now we could riff in a way that was very monophonic and grainy that had a very modern but retro sound. I would write on the synth and on an upright piano in our hallway at home. Producer Richard Burgess didn’t think Eyes was right for the album. I like it but it went by the wayside.”
The box set focuses on Spandau’s early years, when they were doyens of the New Romantic Blitz scene. Everything Is Now – Vol 1: 1978 – 1982 includes the band’s first two albums, Journeys To Glory and 1982’s Diamond, as well as singles, remixes, BBC sessions, demos, the whole kit and caboodle.
The package also includes a 44-page book with photos, many of them previously-unseen, taken by fellow Blitz Kid Graham Smith.
For many fans, these were the group’s glory years, an era of kilts and fringes, during which their sound evolved from post punk to synth-assisted futurism to funk-influenced singles like Chant No. 1 and Paint Me Down.
The box set is out on September 12. You can pre-order by clicking here.
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