Strength by The Alarm

Strength, the Alarm's second studio album, came out on IRS in 1985, and it finds the band from Rhyl leaning all the way into the big-sky arena rock they had taken up after starting life as a punk group, the Toilets, under Mike Peters, with their Welsh roots still worn proudly. Mike Howlett produced it. Peters sings lead and plays guitar and harmonica, Dave Sharp plays guitar and sings backing vocals, Eddie MacDonald plays bass and Nigel Twist drums, and the whole thing rings out with flag-waving urgency.

The title track went out ahead of the album and reached 40 in the UK; "Spirit of '76" followed and got to 22, putting the band on Top of the Pops and a round of other TV shows; "Knife Edge" closed the campaign, stalling at 43, just shy of the top 40. It came after Declaration, a number six album in the UK, and before Eye of the Hurricane, and it has had a long afterlife: an expanded remaster in 2000 with sleeve notes by Peters, a double CD of demos called Alt-Strength in 2001, and the Strength 1985-1986 set in 2019.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.