¡Alarma! (album)


¡Alarma! is the fourth studio album by Christian rock band Daniel Amos, issued on Newpax Records in April 1981. It is the first album in their ¡Alarma! Chronicles series and one of the earliest records in the Christian alternative rock genre.

Background

¡Alarma!, released weeks after the band's Beatles- and Beach Boys-influenced Horrendous Disc, took a decidedly new wave direction along the lines of Elvis Costello or Talking Heads.
Lyrically, the album contains social commentary so harsh that CCM described it as "perhaps the most scathing ever put out by a Christian label." Other critics offered the following assessments: "the most exciting release of the year"; "brash, new and intensely creative" and "possibly the most significant album in the genre of Christian rock".
¡Alarma! was the first of a four-part series of albums by DA entitled The ¡Alarma! Chronicles, which also included the albums Doppelgänger, Vox Humana, and Fearful Symmetry. This album, along with the other three albums from the Alarma! Chronicles, was rereleased as part of the Alarma! Chronicles book set in 2000. The book set included three CDs and a hardcover book of lyrics, photos, liner notes, essays, interviews and other information that amounted to over 200 printed pages.
Bass guitarist Marty Dieckmeyer left the band before the ¡Alarma! Tour, and was replaced with bassist Tim Chandler.
This album was listed at No. 62 in the book .

Reissue

In 2013, the album was remastered and repackaged as a two-CD deluxe edition by Stunt Records. Tom Gulotta and Eric Townsend were put in charge of compiling the project - bringing together previously unseen photos, never-before-heard out-takes, mixes and demos, and a reading of the first chapter of the Alarma Chronicles by Malcolm Wild.

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Central Theme"
  2. "¡Alarma!"
  3. "Big Time/Big Deal"
  4. "Props"
  5. "My Room"
  6. "Faces To The Window"
  7. "Cloak & Dagger"
  8. "Colored By"

    Side two

  9. "C & D Reprise"
  10. "Through The Speakers"
  11. "Hit Them"
  12. "Baby Game"
  13. "Shedding The Mortal Coil"
  14. "Endless Summer"
  15. "Walls Of Doubt"
  16. "Ghost Of The Heart"

    Deluxe edition bonus disc

  17. "Little Things"
  18. "Off My Mind"
  19. "As Long As I Live"
  20. "No Spaceship"
  21. "Out Of Town"
  22. "Only One"
  23. "Central Theme"
  24. "My Room"
  25. "Faces To The Window"
  26. "Colored By"
  27. "Through The Speakers"
  28. "Hit Them"
  29. "Endless Summer"
  30. "Walls of Doubt"
  31. "Props"
  32. "Big Time/Big Deal"
  33. "Shedding the Mortal Coil"
  34. "Ghost of the Heart"
  35. "¡Alarma!"
  36. "Colored By"
  37. "¡Alarma! Reading" by Malcolm Wild

    Personnel

Musicians