Surviving Stranglers band members, JJ Burnel, Baz Warne, and newest member Jim Macaulay completed 'Dark Matters' remotely during lockdowns, making it their first album since 2012. The album features the single 'And If You Should See Dave…', an honest tribute to their much-missed keyboard player Dave Greenfield who tragically passed away a year ago from Covid-19. 'A year ago, on May 3rd my great friend and colleague of 45 years, Dave Greenfield, passed away, another victim of the pandemic.' says JJ Burnel. 'We had already recorded most of the album with him and during the lockdowns our only wish was to complete it as a fitting tribute to his life and work. I consider this to be one of our finest recordings.' Greenfield himself features on 8 of the 11 tracks, which were made over the course of two years at the band's studios in the rural idylls of Somerset, and in Southern France, produced by long-time collaborator Louie Nicastro.

UK pressing features three additional tracks over the US edition. Soundtrack to film by UK director Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels) and starring Brad Pitt. Features irresistably eclectic mix of new and old and includes classic tracks by The Specials, Massive Attack, Madonna, Oasis, Mirwais and The Stranglers among others.

A lavish package celebrating the myriad bumps, bruises, and highlights of the Stranglers' earliest and best, the boastfully titled Old Testament is a four-CD set (five, in some editions) that spans the group's first six albums (up to 1981's La Folie), also including a number of non-LP singles and B-sides. (Physical editions of the box also contain an exhaustive – if blindly…er, boastful – 112-page book, which makes the package all the more attractive for longtime fans who have long since hunter-gathered the rarities.) It would be a major gamble to make this your first Stranglers purchase, especially due to the 1997 release of The Hit Men, which runs through the band's stylistically varied singles and doesn't indulge too much in the Stranglers' lengthy deterioration phase(s). They were productive from 1977-1981, discounting the number of album tracks that really shouldn't have seen the light of day. Make no mistake, nearly every good thing they did can be found within these four discs, save for the odd later hit like 1984's soft rock gem "Skin Deep." The 80-plus songs on The Old Testament definitely prove the Stranglers to be worthy of a box set.
© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Not many true guitar gods have walked this earth. In the hands of these rare beings, the guitar is more than a six stringed musical instrument; it is a source of immense power, a weapon of mass destruction, a light saber, the most magical of wands, capable of removing a groupy’s panties with a single note…

The brilliance of this collection is that it combines the standard Brit-punk anthems by the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, and Stiff Little Fingers with other great songs that typify the variety and range of punk-era independent music from both sides of the Atlantic. The songs are so well chosen that the punk aesthetic is further revealed by the inclusion of songs that characterize pub rock, new wave, and other related genres. The usual punk suspects ("New Rose," "Anarchy in the UK") are all here, along with many other treasures: Dr. Feelgood's "Milk and Alcohol", Devo's "Mongoloid," Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner," Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," and Television's "Marquee Moon." The less commonly anthologized punk selections are inspired, too: the Ruts' "Babylon Is Burning," Generation X's "Ready Steady Go," and X-Ray Spex's "Identity," along with the seminal "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." The conception of the genre is expanded further to include Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, XTC, Joe Jackson, the Pretenders, the Tubes, and Blondie, and their presence overcomes the tendency for boring repetition on a very long collection.

Ultimate Rock: 72 of the biggest rock anthems and harder to find rarities across 4 CDs, all housed in a fold out cardboard digi-pack sleeve. Alice Cooper, Argent, Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas, Judas Priest, Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, Primal Scream, Meat Loaf, The Stranglers, Santana, Manic Street Preachers, Jeff Buckley, Ted Nugent, Joe Satriani, Al Stewart, Cheap Trick, Spirit, Johnny Winter, The Guess Who, Fleetwood Mac and more, and more…

In 2013, the great five-disc Stranglers box set The Old Testament: The U.A. Studio Recordings (1977-1982) from 1992 was reissued, featuring most of the group's best albums plus a bunch of drool-worthy bonuses (demos, B-sides, remixes, and other whatnot). This bulky 11-disc set was released just one year after – the excuse being that the band's 40th anniversary must be honored – but the differences are vast, with this one serving a purpose for the hardcore while Old Testament is the clear winner for the more casual listener…

As part of The Stranglers' celebration of their Ruby Anniversary, the definitive collection of the B-side recordings they made whilst signed to Epic is released for the first time, via their own label. Appropriately, as befits a band marking forty years together, Here & There: The Epic B-sides Collection 1983-1991 gathers 40 tracks across 2 CDs and is also released as a 40 track digital package. The Stranglers released no less than 13 singles in the UK during this period, which saw them produce five albums: four studio and one live. The Stranglers signed to Epic Records in 1982 having been with United Artists / Liberty since 1977. The change of label coincided with changes in marketing policy across the UK industry - often dubbed "the Frankie Goes to Hollywood effect". Previously, The Stranglers' had released only one 12" single - an extended version of Bear Cage in 1980 - but from 2nd Epic single, Midnight Summer Dream until 1990, each release had a 12" version which required extra studio or, increasingly, live tracks to "add value" to the package.

Despite its rather cheeky title, Greatest Hits 1977-1990 is a good place to sample the entire Stranglers output. From the squalor of the late-'70s material, to the smoothed-out gloom pop of songs like "Skin Deep" and other mid- to late-'80s neo-goth rock, this is a solid anthology that values substance over style and exhaustive track selection. For sure, a well-edited Stranglers anthology is the only way to enjoy them; they recorded way too much dross to spend time searching out all of their plentiful, marginal records.