RECORD REVIEW: The Dawn Parade

I HAVE never heard a record that has torn such polarised emotions from my heart. The Dawn Parade, from Bury St Edmonds who made Cambridge their adopted home have finally released their first, and apparently last, album. Despite surviving unsettling change

I HAVE never heard a record that has torn such polarised emotions from my heart. The Dawn Parade, from Bury St Edmonds who made Cambridge their adopted home have finally released their first, and apparently last, album.

Despite surviving unsettling changes in band personnel and years of record company apathy - the group quit in August of this year, leaving this posthumous release as their legacy.

The album they had been working on for such a long time omits some of their best songs in favour of some much weaker tracks and it's all thrown in with the odds and ends of the past Peel sessions and singles.

This is a scrapbook of success and failure and perhaps throws light on why they weren't destined to be a household name.

The Dawn Parade remained unsigned and little-known, but their music, at its best, is truly exceptional. I shuddered listening to the cried-out poetry of The Passion. "I want no hangman's pass to paradise, I won't go washed in blood or saved in sacrifice." These are not the lyrics of an ordinary band.

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CHRIS BOLAND