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Infected

When I found a vinyl copy of Infected by The The in the wild last summer, I was in two minds as to whether I should bring it home or not. It's an album I liked and admired when it was new, enough that I bought it on cassette at the time. But it was never a record I unreservedly loved.

I did bring it home and had the peculiar pleasure of hearing it all for the first time in what must have been at least twenty five years, if not thirty. Why then had I hesitated to pick it up? I doubted I'd revisit it - and, sure enough, since then I've yet to play the LP a second time. I had misgivings about the state-of-the-art mid-'80s production when it was still the mid-'80s. The songs still stand up pretty well, but I didn't always enjoy how they were dressed up, and nor do I now.

The political concerns it addressed, sharply here; clumsily there; are largely still relevant, yet it's such a serious record, to the extent of being po-faced. My favourite tracks on it are 'Heartland' and 'Slow Train to Dawn' - I love Neneh Cherry's contribution to the latter. Even so, I've just talked myself into donating this album to the local charity shop on my next visit there.

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