Rifle Sport - Complex 12" (1985, Ruthless)

In spite of the water damaged record sleeve to your left, I'm that much closer to completing my Rifle Sport catalog.  A few years ago I raved about their 1983 debut, Voice of Reason, one of the finest examples I've encountered of a band straddling the fairly nascent divide between hardcore and post-punk.  And though it would be a good four years until the world got a proper follow up to it Todd Trainer, Flour, Gerrard Boissy & Co. chummed out a few tidbits to tide the faithful over, with Complex being perhaps the most notable. I've delved in to the pedigree of R/S's roster (and even those of producers Ian Burgess and Steve Fjelsted) so I'll spare you a rerun and get right down to the record at hand.  The sparse but sonically enriching title cut bears the stripe of jittery but commanding affectations early Gang of Four made their calling card.  It's accompanying a-side, "Bedroom of Ice" is an outright triumph, 140 seconds of nervy, forward-thinking modern rock splitting the difference between Joy Division and American contemporaries Middle Class. Quite literally the kind of stuff I live for.  "Box of Dirt" is a live number, and a comparatively impov-y and amelodic one at that, possessing a vibrant as-all-get-out drumbeat with J. Christopher spouting away boisterously on the mic, sounding like he's having the time of his ever-lovin' life.  

A1. Complex

A2. Bedroom of Ice

B. Box of Dirt (live)

Hear