after the snow

Modern English thawed their experimental, post-punk noise and found a warmer, more commercial sound with this new wave classic.  'After the Snow' shows them branching out into melodic pop with the addition of acoustic guitar, strings, and even flute.  Lead singer Robbie Grey remembers:  "With 'After the Snow', Hugh Jones produced us, so he took over the reins really, in a lot of ways. 'Mesh and Lace' is just when we were really young and we didn’t know what we were doing, so it’s quite experimental."  The album made it to number seventy-eight on the US album chart and number thirteen in the UK on the strength of the single 'I Melt With You'.  Grey says of their inaccurate reputation as a one-hit wonder:  "Totally embrace it. I don’t have a problem. It pays all my bills. When there’s been lean periods for Modern English, that’s still been there as a constant, and it’s really helped us to carry on really. At the moment, it’s in a Hershey bars advert on TV.  There’s a lot of money involved in those things. As you know, music is in trouble now. People don’t even buy CDs anymore, let alone records. Bands find it really hard to make money off downloads. There’s no money there for bands to have a living. The only way really, except if you’re a massive band like U2 or something, the way we make a living is by adverts and film soundtracks. That’s it really.  That’s been brilliant, because you can do so many things; Burger King advert, you name it, and not just in America but all over the world. That’s helped us carry on with making music, really."






http://www.modernenglish.me/







Their transcendent single "I Melt with You" received extensive airplay on MTV and was included in the film 'Valley Girl'; but only peaked at seventy-eight in the US and eighteen in the UK. 


"Moving forward using all my breath
Making love to you was never second best
I saw the world thrashing all around your face
Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace
I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you
(you should know better)
Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(you should see why)
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
(you should know better)
I made a pilgrimage to save this humans race
(you should see why)
What I'm comprehending a race that long gone bye"

"Someone's Calling" peaked at number forty-three in the UK.

"Life in the Gladhouse" hit number twenty-six in the UK.

'After the Snow'
full album:



All songs written and arranged by Richard Brown, Michael Conroy, Robbie Grey, Gary McDowell, and Stephen Walker.

Side one
1. "Someone's Calling"   4:01
2. "Life in the Gladhouse"   4:38
3. "Face of Wood"   5:56
4. "Dawn Chorus"   4:45
Side two
5. "I Melt with You"   4:11
6. "After the Snow"   3:51
7. "Carry Me Down"   5:25
8. "Tables Turning"