I have never been moved to review a CD before, but this is a must for any breathing human being. The genius of Mark Burgess is incapsulated in The Chameleons first album, Script of the Bridge, which is in turn both beautiful and chilling.

In their original guise, The Chameleons produced three stunning albums (Script of the Bridge, What Does Anything Mean Basically, Strange Times) all of which would sit in my top 10 of all time. At various stages of my life each has vied for favouritism, but in recent years it is Script of the Bridge which is a constant soundtrack, and I doubt a week of my last 10 years has passed without playing the album from start to finish.

It would be insulting to try and describe individual tunes, Second Skin is a truly remarkable piece of work that still induces a coma like state, immediately followed by the joyous Up the Down Escalator to bring you back to life. The power of the lyrics combined with the unique Chameleons rhythmn makes this band… more »

I have never been moved to review a CD before, but this is a must for any breathing human being. The genius of Mark Burgess is incapsulated in The Chameleons first album, Script of the Bridge, which is in turn both beautiful and chilling.

In their original guise, The Chameleons produced three stunning albums (Script of the Bridge, What Does Anything Mean Basically, Strange Times) all of which would sit in my top 10 of all time. At various stages of my life each has vied for favouritism, but in recent years it is Script of the Bridge which is a constant soundtrack, and I doubt a week of my last 10 years has passed without playing the album from start to finish.

It would be insulting to try and describe individual tunes, Second Skin is a truly remarkable piece of work that still induces a coma like state, immediately followed by the joyous Up the Down Escalator to bring you back to life. The power of the lyrics combined with the unique Chameleons rhythmn makes this band something special.

The question is often posed by the uninitiated- if The Chameleons were so good, why were they not more popular? Those who have lived with the music never ask, they just keep listening and keep enjoying. Is the secret about to be unlocked 25 years on?

If ever a band deserved the tag "They should have been huge" it's the Chameleons. Emerging from the Western side of the Pennines in the early 1980s, they never reached the enormous world-wide audience their music deserved. However, two and a half decades after they released their first album, many people who have never heard of the Chameleons certainly own records that probably could not have existed without them. The Verve, Interpol, Editors, Bloc Party, the Wedding Present and Spiritualized are just some of the bands who include Chameleons fans in their line-ups and within whose music the sound they made reverberates to this day.

Their distinctive debut, Script Of The Bridge, from 1983, introduces what soon became Chameleons trademarks: Dave Fielding and Reg Smithies' hypnotically entwined, plangent guitars, and singer-bassist Mark Burgess's powerful lyrical themes: the yearning for lost innocence and the seductive but dangerous power of nostalgia. This is the sound of young… more »

If ever a band deserved the tag "They should have been huge" it's the Chameleons. Emerging from the Western side of the Pennines in the early 1980s, they never reached the enormous world-wide audience their music deserved. However, two and a half decades after they released their first album, many people who have never heard of the Chameleons certainly own records that probably could not have existed without them. The Verve, Interpol, Editors, Bloc Party, the Wedding Present and Spiritualized are just some of the bands who include Chameleons fans in their line-ups and within whose music the sound they made reverberates to this day.

Their distinctive debut, Script Of The Bridge, from 1983, introduces what soon became Chameleons trademarks: Dave Fielding and Reg Smithies' hypnotically entwined, plangent guitars, and singer-bassist Mark Burgess's powerful lyrical themes: the yearning for lost innocence and the seductive but dangerous power of nostalgia. This is the sound of young men attempting to make sense of the world around them and within them, looking inwardly and outwardly and asking the Big Questions about life, the universe and everything and then documenting the results within waterfalls of guitars while the rest of us would settle for talking about it in the pub.

Their debut album is packed with instant classics, from powerful opener Don't Fall - Burgess in less regular role as out and out rocker, under attack by unseen enemies and screaming of "backs against the wall" - to the quietly hushed promise of Pleasure And Pain, or Fielding and Smithies' almost breathtakingly tear-jerking intro to Less Than Human.

But if there's one song that sums up Script - and possibly provides the highlight of their whole career - it's the six minutes and 51 seconds of almost hallucinatory perfection that make up Second Skin: a brilliant song about transient highs and illusory beauty with a melody to match Burgess's memorable chorus: "If this the stuff that dreams are made of, then no wonder I feel like I'm floating on air." In 1983, Second Skin tore up John Peel's Festive Fifty, the first signifier that among like-minded souls around the country - as they later would around the world - the Chameleons' songs were striking a chord.

And so here we are 25 years later, with the 25th anniversary edition of Script Of The Bridge that is appropriately the best version of the album ever released. For the first time, unlike any previous release, this is the sound the band themselves heard in the studio in those mythical, far off days. If this album were being recorded today it wouldn't sound at all out of place among the Bloc Partys and Interpols, although at 25 years and counting, will probably outlive them all.