''Sir Army Suit'' is the third album recorded by the
Canadian rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Klaatu Klaatu may refer to:
*Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still), Klaatu (''The Day the Earth Stood Still''), the protagonist in the 1951 science fiction film and its 2008 remake
* Klaatu (band), a Canadian progressive-rock group formed in 1973
** Klaa ...
.
Release
Despite aggressive promotion by Capitol and the band, including bandmember interviews conducted by phone with live radio shows, the album suffered mediocre sales, because of fading popular interest in the band after the 1977 rumour about the band being
the Beatles recording anonymously was dispelled. With ''Sir Army Suit'', the band began to reveal their images to the public, first in the album's artwork, then in March 1979 with an animated music video depicting the musicians in caricature. The video was broadcast on 10 March 1979 on ''
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert''.
A newly remastered deluxe edition of the album was released on 31 October 2013 via the band's own independent record label "Klaatunes". This re-issue includes a bonus
DVD containing animated music videos for "A Routine Day", "Everybody Took A Holiday", "Tokeymor Field" and "Perpetual Motion Machine", plus an hour-long interview with the three band members:
Terry Draper
Terry Edward Draper is a Canadian musician who was the drummer and one of three songwriters for the 1970s progressive rock band Klaatu.Brown, Dan (April 4, 2000). "When the music's over: Rock and roll is a vicious game, but not half as rough as ...
, Dee Long, and John Woloschuk.
Artwork
This is the only original Klaatu album whose cover was not painted by Ted Jones; the cover of ''Sir Army Suit'' was painted by Ian Thomas Band keyboardist
Hugh Syme
Hugh Syme is a Canadian Juno Award-winning graphic artist and member of the Premier Artists Collection (PAC) who is best known for his artwork and cover concepts for rock and metal bands. He is also a musician and has appeared on some Rush ...
, mainly known for album cover work with
Rush
Rush(es) may refer to:
Places
United States
* Rush, Colorado
* Rush, Kentucky
* Rush, New York
* Rush City, Minnesota
* Rush Creek (Kishwaukee River tributary), Illinois
* Rush Creek (Marin County, California), a stream
* Rush Creek (Mono Cou ...
. All three members appear on the back cover. The front cover features a self-portrait of Hugh Syme and Klaatu's previous graphic artist, Ted Jones. Other people featured on the back cover are Queen Elizabeth II, Linda and Terry Brown and Francis W. Davies.
Musical style
The album focuses more on
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
songs than previous Klaatu albums.
[Kurtz, Peter]
Overview: Sir Army Suit
Allmusic. Many of these songs were hold-overs from early demos the band made pre-fame and were revived because band member John Woloschuk had spent a year writing and arranging the ''Hope'' album, leaving him artistically drained. The band's other main songwriter, Dee Long, picked up the ball with many new compositions and ultimately co-produced and engineered the record while the band's regular producer, Terry Brown, was busy working with
Rush
Rush(es) may refer to:
Places
United States
* Rush, Colorado
* Rush, Kentucky
* Rush, New York
* Rush City, Minnesota
* Rush Creek (Kishwaukee River tributary), Illinois
* Rush Creek (Marin County, California), a stream
* Rush Creek (Mono Cou ...
and
Max Webster.
According to ''
AllMusic''‘s Peter Kurtz, the album, while predominantly reflecting 1960s pop and
British Invasion music, also contains elements of other musical styles including
disco
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...
and
heavy metal.
[ A reviewer for ]Julian Cope
Julian David Cope (born 21 October 1957) is an English musician and author. He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side proj ...
's Head Heritage wrote that the album seemed "more of a Beatle-soundalike record" than Klaatu's debut, as if the Beatles had continued in "a parallel universe where Ringo dropped out in the early '70s and the remaining three continued to peaceably work together right through glam and metal and on up to disco (though in the Klaatu universe apparently punk never happened.)" AllMusic's Dave Steger praised the first two Klaatu albums but criticized the rest as "downright ghastly pop-rock affairs".
Track listing
All songs written by Dee Long, except where noted.
;Side one
;Side two
Personnel
*Dee Long - vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
, drum machine, synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
*John Woloschuk - vocals, piano, organ
Organ may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a part of an organism
Musical instruments
* Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone
** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument
** Hammond ...
, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, bells, mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...
, synthesizer, clavinet
The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...
, percussion
*Terry Draper
Terry Edward Draper is a Canadian musician who was the drummer and one of three songwriters for the 1970s progressive rock band Klaatu.Brown, Dan (April 4, 2000). "When the music's over: Rock and roll is a vicious game, but not half as rough as ...
- drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
, vocals, tambourine, triangle, gong, anvil
An anvil is a metalworking tool consisting of a large block of metal (usually forged or cast steel), with a flattened top surface, upon which another object is struck (or "worked").
Anvils are as massive as practical, because the higher th ...
, bell tree
References
{{Authority control
1978 albums
Klaatu (band) albums
Albums produced by Terry Brown (record producer)
Capitol Records albums