Chameleons (View Discography)

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The Chameleons seminal debut album Script of the Bridge has been restored and re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios.

The restoration project was undertaken by production team Guy Massey and Steve Rooke, who recently received a Grammy Award for their work on the Beatles Box Set.

Massey (who has also worked with Ed Sheeran, Manic Street Preachers, Paul McCartney etc.) quotes Script of the Bridge as one of the most influential albums on his career.

Working from original studio tapes, the production pair painstakingly restored the album song by song, to create what the band believe is the truest reflection of how the recordings were meant to be.

The Chameleons distinctive debut album is packed with instant classics, from powerful opener Don't Fall - Burgess in less regular role as out and out rocker, under attack by unseen enemies and screaming of "backs against the wall" - to the quietly hushed promise of Pleasure And Pain, or Fielding and Smithies' almost breathtakingly tear-jerking intro to Less Than Human.

But if there's one song that sums up Script - and possibly provides the highlight of their whole career - it's the six minutes and 51 seconds of almost hallucinatory perfection that make up Second Skin: a brilliant song about transient highs and illusory beauty with a melody to match Burgess's memorable chorus: "If this the stuff that dreams are made of, then no wonder I feel like I'm floating on air." In 1983, Second Skin tore up John Peel's Festive Fifty, the first signifier that among like-minded souls around the country - as they later would around the world - the Chameleons' songs were striking a chord.

If ever a band deserved the tag "They should have been huge" it's the Chameleons.