There is a kind of double irony to the lyrics of the opening track of The Sound's second album. Listening to the excellent post-punk classic 'Winning' the lyrics convey becoming triumphant in the face of adversity: "I was going to drown then I started swimming. I was going down then I started winning". Yet these optimistic words are set to a doomy rhythm section that suggests anything but. All of this naturally leads to thinking of frontman Adrian Borland's recent suicide. Rather reflect on that though, it is best to concentrate on an excellent album from the early 80's which ranks alongside The Comsat Angels' early work for being an overlooked classic. 'From The Lion's Mouth' possesses that same air of controlled miserablism and that tangible sense of loneliness that sounds just as poignant now as it did 22 years ago. Unfortunately the group lost their way on subsequent albums in an effort to cross over to a more lucrative market. Remember them instead for exemplars of edgy rock such as the rattling intensity of 'The Fire' and 'Skeletons' or the awesome 'Fatal Flaw' and 'New Dark Age' with its threatening military drum introduction. Attaching the more commercial-sounding single 'In The Hothouse' seems unwelcome in this context but it cannot dilute the power of the attendant album.