Description
¡Alarma!: The “¡Alarma! Chronicles” Volume I is the first release of a four part series of albums by Daniel Amos entitled The ¡ALARMA! Chronicles. (Doppelgänger, Vox Humana, and Fearful Symmetry being the second, third and the fourth installments, respectively.)
¡Alarma!, sub-titled The “Alarma Chronicles” Volume I, is the fourth studio album by the American alternative rock band Daniel Amos, released on NewPax Records in May 1981, distributed by The Benson Company. The album was recorded and mixed by Thom Roy at Whitefield Studios in Santa Ana, California; with Roy and the band producing for Rebel Base Productions. (Rehearsals and arrangements recorded at Rebel Base Studio, a little rehearsal studio and office in Santa Ana that Daniel Amos had been using for years.) All songs written by lead singer Terry Scott Taylor except tracks A1 and B7 co-written with guitarist Jerry Chamberlain and track A5 co-written with former band member Mark Cook.
Alarma, actually released just a few weeks after the band’s Beatles and Beach Boys-influenced effort Horrendous Disc, took a decidedly new wave direction along the lines of Devo, Elvis Costello, and Talking Heads. Lyrically, the album contains social commentary so harsh that CCM Magazine described it as “perhaps the most scathing ever put out by a Christian label.” In the October issue of CCM, Daniel Amos was featured with two albums on the magazine’s sales chart simultaneously, Alarma at No. 7 and Horrendous Disc at No. 8.
Alarma was the first of a four part series of albums by Daniel Amos entitled The ¡ALARMA! Chronicles. The title of the series indicated its purpose: a wake-up call to a comfortable church. The four-album series was fully delivered on by the band over the course of five years, and also included the albums Doppelgänger, Vox Humana, and Fearful Symmetry. Plenty of artists make concept records, but Daniel Amos made four concept records, all centered around the same concept, all connected to one another. As well, on the tours that followed each release, the band presented a full multimedia event complete with video screens synchronized to the music.
Alarma was included in the Editors’ Choice 1981 list of CCM Magazine, a list featuring 15 albums released during 1981, before the end of November.
Shortly after the release of Horrendous Disc, longtime DA fans were shocked to find the band suddenly metamorphosed from a country & western outfit into a quirky, occasionally disturbing new wave band on this freaky-looking album featuring the band members with their eyes airbrushed out. Off-beat harmonies reminiscent of Rick Ocasek or David Byrne are mixed with lyrics full of literary and topical references. This was hardly what anyone had expected. Punk-influenced two-beat rhythms abound here. Packaged with a surreal text called The ¡Alarma! Chronicles that compliments the songs, this record hit a mark way ahead of its time. Recording quality is a little shoddy in places, but what it loses in hiss and noise it more than makes up for in ingenuity. [Mark Allender, AMG]
It would be inaccurate to say that Daniel Amos is on the cutting edge of Contemporary Christian music. The group is far ahead, preparing the way for the knife. ‘Horrendous Disc‘, finally seeing the light after nearly three years in a muddled captivity, may yet be ahead of it’s time. ‘Alarma!’, which would probably still be considered by Christians to be avant garde if released in 1984.
The near simultaneous release of these two albums provides a capsular history of the evolving Daniel Amos. Horrendous Disc is stylistically and vocally akin to Shotgun Angel (D.A.’s second album) and indebted to the Beatles’ Abbey Road in some respects, while Alarma! is a full blown realization of 80’s rock, drawing heavily on the new wave movement. Song length is also indicative of the group’s development: H.D. has nine (or 10, depending on the version hits the streets), longer songs while Alarma! has 13, shorter numbers.
Horrendous Disc falls into the category of, if you’ll excuse the term, mainstream Christian rock. Better played and more obtuse than most to be sure, it’s lyrics still, in the mainstream tradition, address God and man in praise and exhortation. Most Christians will understand the direction and intent of this record, with the possible exception of the title track.
«I Believe In You», for example, fits perfectly into what Christian radio programmers consider to be appropriate and playable. «Horrendous Disc», on the other hand, is a bizarre, multi-faceted fantasy about the judgement day replaying of a person’s sordid deeds as recorded on a “horrendous” (by virtue of it’s content) disc. It won’t get much airplay, knowing the strictures of religious radio, but it is one of the LP’s most interesting pieces.
Alarma! marches in where most Christian music fears to tread. Terry Taylor has written the most poignant lyrics of his career; perhaps the most scathing ever put out by a Christian label. (“Sugar cane in cellophane” this is not.) While the lyrics are often obscured by the music, a reading of the printed lyric sheet will reveal strong commentaries on much of 20th century Christianity, including music («Alarma!»), TV preachers («Big Time/Big Deal»), isolationism («My Room»), world hunger («Faces To The Window»), judgementalism («Colored By») and the Church («Baby Game»).
The music on Alarma! is frenetic, raw, new wave. And Terry Taylor sings it that way too. Unlike H.D., Alarma! has undergone no “sweetening” (adding of strings and horns) or sanitizing in mixdown. No two songs sound the same.
Both of these albums bring the crucial difference between contemporary Christian music and other forms of gospel into sharp focus. This is thought-provoking literary stuff, not “pie in the sky” or “bless me” music. It may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, but you know what can happen if you don’t take your medicine…
Best cuts on Horrendous Disc: «On The Line», «I Believe In You», «I Love You», «Hound Of Heaven». Alarma!: «Ghost Of The Heart», «Alarma!», «Baby Game», «Walls Of Doubt». [John W. Styll, CCM, April 1981]
Alarma! (Deluxe Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
Recorded by Terry Taylor and his cohorts over 30 years ago, ‘¡Alarma!’ is the album that your parents used to wish they were allowed to listen to over Sunday lunch instead of your Granddad’s Harry Secombe LPs. If Captain Beefheart, Rush and The Police decided to collaborate on a concept album based around a Revelation-esque dream sequence, the results probably wouldn’t be a million miles away from this. The vibe is very much “Dad’s record collection” during opener «Central Theme» and the title track that follows, before «Props» (which wades in sounding like an ‘Abbey Road’ b-side) and the Doobie Brothers-esque groove of «My Room» start to draw attention to a light-hearted feel that contrasts nicely with the current Christian penchant for four chord, emotionally-driven predictability (fans of «Reggae Man» from the comedy series Look Around You will undoubtedly enjoy «Faces To The Window»). What was originally side two in the days of vinyl is pure early ’80s guitar pop; chorus-laden guitars, harsh, driving bass and a drum sound flatter than a hedgehog that didn’t wait for the green man. Musically brilliant, lyrically intelligent, more than a little quirky and surprisingly fresh sounding; certainly worth (re)discovering. Oh, and on this handsome repackage via Retroactive Records diehard fans get all manner of demos, outtakes and alternative mixes. [Jon Cooper, Cross Rhythms, January 2014]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/alarma-deluxe-edition/760901968)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Central Theme” – 3:18
A2. “Alarma” – 3:21
A3. “Big Time/Big Deal” – 3:04
A4. “Props” – 1:58
A5. “My Room” – 3:25
A6. “Faces to the Window” – 2:31
A7. “Cloak and Dagger” – 2:16
A8. “Colored By” – 2:58
Side Two
B1. “C & D Reprise” – 0:43
B2. “Through The Speakers” – 2:42
B3. “Hit Them” – 2:28
B4. “Baby Game” – 2:43
B5. “Shedding the Mortal Coil” – 1:20
B6. “Endless Summer” – 2:52
B7. “Walls of Doubt” – 3:57
B8. “Ghost of the Heart” – 2:36
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by NewPax Records. Re-issued on CD by Stunt Records in 1992 under license from The Benson Company, with three bonus tracks: concert “No Spaceship” (2:30), “Out Of Town” (2:36), “My Room” Demo Version (3:44). A Deluxe 2CD version of the album was released by Stunt Records in 2013, distributed by Born Twice Records. Available at Bandcamp:
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/alarma-deluxe-w-bonus
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/alarma-bonus-bonus-disc
An Alarma Radio Special LP was as well released by NewPax Records in 1981 featuring the same jacket as the regular LP, but with sticker on front. The Bruce Brown produced radio special – featuring an interview with Daniel Amos frontman and main songwriter Terry Taylor as well as selections from the album – was aired across the country in the beginning of September 1981. Available at Bandcamp:
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/alarma-radio-special-an-intimate-insight
A Deluxe double disc version of the album (a 2CD in a three-panel digipak) was released by Stunt Records in 2013, as a part of its ongoing deluxe reissue series. Distributed by Born Twice Records. Disc One presents the entire Alarma! album, carefully and respectfully remastered by J Powell at Steinhaus. Disc Two includes 21 bonus tracks, filled with demos, outtakes, alternate mixes and a 7-minute reading of the first chapter of the Alarma Chronicles by Malcolm Wild (of Malcolm & Alwyn fame). Includes a 28-page booklet filled with complete lyrics, the Alarma Chronicles text, previously unseen photos and memorabilia.
Although it was released scant hours after DA’s third release – Horrendous Disc – the three years since the Beatlesque music that had thrilled fans on the “Amos & Randy (Stonehill) Tour” was recorded had changed the band. Keyboardist Mark Cook and second drummer/percussionist Alex MacDougall had left the group, and the music world had turned on to punk. Early records by bands like Talking Heads and Elvis Costello had turned the world onto a raw & edgy, quirky & crunchy sound with literate approaches to rock & roll lyrics that no doubt inspired new directions for Taylor & Co.
The quartet appears to make a major sonic leap with ¡Alarma!, but once you get past the more open and sparse arrangements you can still hear Taylor’s familiar melodic voice and artful lyrical reflections. And, if anything the stripped back arrangements make the rhythm section of drummer Ed McTaggert and bassist Marty Dieckmeyer more crucial to the song’s construction and thrust Jerry Chamberlain’s inventive, hair-parting guitar solos all the more to the fore. At the time, DA fans were a bit overwhelmed by the dramatic shift in sound and tone, but all these years later, they have been vindicated by this albums continued relevance and musical vibrancy. It rocked then, and it rocks still!
Of course, the contrivance of a 4 album “¡Alarma! Chronicles! (we see your trilogy and we’ll up you one),” and a written story line were a curiosity, but ultimately what makes !Alarma! work is the sound of the band working together and the songs themselves. Oh, there’s a bit of playful reflection on their own artistic aspirations on «Big Time/Big Deal», and a goofy bit of nonsense in «Props», but the record moves quickly to its lyrical point – a warning to those who live hidden away in their churches («In My Room») surrounded only by folk who agree with them (“we harmonize”) and avoid all contact with the real world, with its poor and broken who press their «Faces to the Window».
«Cloak & Dagger» warns against duplicitous “double dealers” who make promises they have no intention of honoring (I’m quite sure this song is not about any record producer or music company exec), while the desire to experience the “real thing” can be “Colored By” the perspective and tradition down at the little church where they “all wear hats” or have some other spiritual fetish.
As they move into side two (you used to have to turn the CD over), Taylor produced some of the best pop/rock songs of his career, a serious of reflection on his role as a Christian communicator who wants to share the “good news” in a way that it can be received as news that is truly good. As a rock singer, he knows it has to come «Through the Speakers», but it’s requires tenderness, you can’t hit them over the head with the book, but “God can have his way when you hit them with love.”
And on and on it goes…. «Endless Summer» finds Taylor and Chamberlain continuing the tribute to the Beach Boys (and their unique brand of end times theology) that they began on «Tidal Wave». «Walls of Doubt», one of my favorite DA songs, captures the struggle to believe with the promise that “love puts to rest some of the questions,” while «Ghost of the Heart» leaves room for the Spirit to “shed the light on me.” A compelling blend of music and ideas that continue to haunt this listener all these years later, it was the best Christian rock release of 1981, IMHO, and it remains in this writer’s top ten of all time. [Brian Quincy Newcomb, February 2015]
CREDITS. Produced by Daniel Amos and Thom Roy for Rebel Base Productions. Recorded and mixed at White Field Studios. Engineered by Thom Roy. Mastered by Steve Hall at MCA Whitney Recording Studios, Glendale, CA. Rehearsals and arrangements recorded at Rebel Base Studio, Santa Ana, CA. Live sound and Road Coordination by Wes Leathers. Cover Concept by Daniel Amos. Photography by Scott Lockwood, Newport Beach, CA. Graphic Design by Karen Knecht. Airbrushing by Stephen Nicol Price. ¡Alarma! Chronicles Book Text written by Terry Taylor, with special thanks to Viann, Philip, and ‘Doc’ Thomas for your suggestions. Thanks to Bob MacKenzie and Pelle Karlsson for the lifesavors. All songs written by Terry Taylor except track A7 and B6 co-written with Jerry Chamberlain, and track B5 co-written with Chamberlain and John Mark Cook. Look for ¡Alarma! Records and Tapes coming soon from Rebel Base Productions/Distribution by The New Benson Co. This album is for Philip, with our deepest love.
Musicians: Daniel Amos – Terry Taylor (Lead and Backing Vocals, Rhythm Guitars), Jerry Chamberlain (Lead Guitars, Backing Vocals, Percussion on track A5), Marty Dieckmeyer (Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Reluctant Lead Vocal on track A4, Percussion on track A5), Ed McTaggart (Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals). Thanks to: Alex MacDougall (Marimba on track A2, Congas on track A5), Karen Benson (Female Vocal on track B8).
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