Eternally Yours in Bloomington, MN

While the into-the-wind blare of the title cut was what people remembered best,
the Saints
' first album,
(I'm) Stranded
, had a lot more musical variety than it was generally given credit for in 1977, and the band stayed much farther from the standard
punk
template (which had solidified with remarkable speed in the wake of
the Sex Pistols
) on their second LP,
Eternally Yours
. For their sophomore outing,
threw actual tempo changes, horn charts, keyboards, and
R&B
accents into the mix, which didn't endear them to
purists, who predictably didn't recognize that these changes had only strengthened the band's sound. Anyone looking for blazing 4/4
will find it in
"Lost and Found"
and
"Private Affair,"
but the horn-fueled
"Know Your Product"
"Orstralia"
proved that
could also sound soulful (
Rocket from the Crypt
owe their entire career to these cuts); the moody
"A Minor Aversion,"
"Untitled,"
"Memories Are Made of This"
proved
could slow it down and still sound tough and impassioned; and
"This Perfect Day"
is quite possibly the greatest song this band would ever record --
Chris Bailey
's sneer of "It's so funny I can't laugh" is alone worth the price of admission. While
is a bit less consistent than
, the material is first-rate, the band sounds better than ever, and the approach suggests the
pop
-smart eclecticism of the band's mid-'80s period fused with the muscle and ferocity of their debut. Maybe
didn't sound like a standard-issue
album in 1978, but it's stood the test of time much better than most of the work of
's first graduating class. ~ Mark Deming