The Saints - Eternally Yours (Reissue, Expanded Edition) (1978)

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, the Saints threw actual tempo changes, horn charts, keyboards, and R&B accents into the mix, which didn't endear them to punk purists, who predictably didn't recognize that these changes had only strengthened the band's sound. Anyone looking for blazing 4/4 punk will find it in "Lost and Found" and "Private Affair," but the horn-fueled "Know Your Product" and "Orstralia" proved that punk could also sound soulful (Rocket from the Crypt owe their entire career to these cuts); the moody "A Minor Aversion," "Untitled," and "Memories Are Made of This" proved the Saints 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 Eternally Yours is a bit less consistent than (I'm) Stranded, 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 Eternally Yours didn't sound like a standard-issue punk album in 1978, but it's stood the test of time much better than most of the work of punk's first graduating class.~Mark Deming