''Stranglers in the Night'' is the eleventh studio album by
the Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have origina ...
and the first release on the band's own record label, Psycho, in 1992.
It opened the recording career of the
Stranglers MK II, with
Paul Roberts on vocals and
John Ellis on guitar. The band returned to a purer, less "produced" sound; the horns have departed and the songs have a less-constrained, harder edge. Styles vary from ballads such as "Southern Mountains" and "Grand Canyon" to the fast-paced "Sugar Bullets" and "Brainbox". The album marks the second Stranglers album to be produced by Mike Kemp, the first being 1986's ''
Dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology, Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Ja ...
''.
The North American version of this album (with a white, rather than dark grey, cover) contained three extra tracks ("Coffee Shop", "Vicious Circles" and "So Uncool"), which were originally
B-sides
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...
in the
UK. The album peaked at No. 33 in the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
in September 1992.
The single "Heaven or Hell" was released from the album, and peaked at No. 46 in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
in August 1992.
The follow-up single, "Sugar Bullets", failed to chart.
Track listing
Personnel
; The Stranglers
*
Paul Roberts – vocals
*
Jean-Jacques Burnel
Jean-Jacques Burnel (born 21 February 1952) is an English musician, producer and songwriter, best known as the bass guitarist and co-lead vocalist with the English rock band The Stranglers. He is the last founding member to remain in the band.
...
– bass, vocals
*
John Ellis – guitar, vocals
*
Dave Greenfield
David Paul Greenfield (29 March 1949 – 3 May 2020) was an English keyboardist, singer and songwriter who was a member of rock band The Stranglers. He joined the band in 1975, within a year of its formation, and played with them for 45 years ...
– keyboards, vocals
*
Jet Black
Brian John Duffy (26 August 1938 – 6 December 2022), professionally known as Jet Black, was an English drummer and founding member of punk rock/ new wave band The Stranglers. He last performed with the band in 2015, and officially retired in ...
– drums, percussion
; Additional musicians
* Simon Morton – additional percussion
; Technical
* Mike Kemp – production
* The Stranglers – production on "Coffee Shop" and "Vicious Circles"
* Richard Norris – engineering
*
Jill Furmanovsky
Jill Furmanovsky (born 1953) is a British photographer who has specialised in documenting rock musicians.
Life and work
Born in Southern Rhodesia, Furmanovsky emigrated with her parents and brother Michael to London in 1965. She studied text ...
– photography
* Cactus – sleeve design
* Simon J. Webb – Psycho Records logo design
References
{{Authority control
The Stranglers albums
1992 albums