theaudience were founded in 1996 by guitarist Billy Reeves, formerly of the indie group Congregation, and he was joined by vocalist by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, drummer/producer "Patch" Hannan (ex-The Sundays), keyboard player Nigel Butler (ex-The Bridge), guitarist Dean Mollett (ex-Porcupine), and bass guitarist Kerin Smith. After the release of a couple of well-received singles on the Elleffe albel, the band issued their eponymous debut album in 1998, which received critical acclaim and reached No. 22 in the UK Albums Chart. Four singles were released from the album, but shortly after it came out, their main songwriter Reeves left the band due to "extreme frustration", and subsequently their label Mercury opted not to release any more singles from the record. The remaining members cobbled together some music of their own, destined for an unreleased second album which was rejected by Mercury, and then they disbanded in late 1998. Ellis-Bextor signed a solo deal with Polydor, but before she released any of her own music, her vocals were featured on Spiller's 'Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)' single in 2000, after which she carved out an extremely successful solo career for herself. Fans of her solo work soon discovered her old band, which led to a couple of the former members of theaudience giving around thirty second album demos to a fan, who uploaded fourteen of them to the internet as a bootleg CD, and it turns out that the lost second album, now titled 'Quiet Storm', is well worth a listen.
Track listing
01 The Greatest Gift
02 How It Should Be Done
03 Day And Night
04 Headcase
05 Wisdom (Out With The Old School)
06 The Fool Will Rise Again
07 So Clever
08 Twilight Of The Teenage
09 Grey With Dusty Rain
10 You Will Do For Now
11 King Of Action
12 Repetition Kills
13 Two Way
14 Sanctuary Hill
Thanks to the sophierazzi blog for the remastering and for the original cover, which I've colourized.
