The Black Album was the fourth album by the Damned, and the first to feature Paul Gray on bass guitar. It was released in 3 November 1980 on Chiswick as a double album, with "Curtain Call" filling the whole of side 3, and a selection of live tracks recorded at Shepperton Studios for Damned fan club members on side 4. The song "13th Floor Vendetta" paid tribute to the film The Abominable Dr. Phibes, opening with the lyrics "...the organ plays to midnight on Maldine Square tonight".
Music
The Black Album represented a change in the career of the group and an expansion of their sound. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett noted that "some of the numbers show the band following their original punk vein, but by this point the four...were leaving straight, three-chord thrash to the cul-de-sac revivalists", and that it was "a chance for the band to try everything from straightforward rock to gentler atmospherics". Raggett described "Wait for a Blackout" as a "dramatic psych/punk surge" with "overtly-serious goth affectations", and qualified "Drinking About My Baby" as "goofy but still enjoyable". Captain Sensible later said that Dave Vanian's vocals were moving to a darker direction, and stated "It is goth; we didn't set out to do that but that is just the way it is. He did have a hearse, he was a grave digger".
Reissues
The Damned's Chiswick back catalogue was acquired by Big Beat in 1981, and The Black Album was reissued in August 1982 as a single album that omitted "Curtain Call" and the live tracks. The artwork for the reissue parodied the sleeve of the Beatles' The White Album, rendered in black with no details other than the group's name embossed in capitals. "It was said that the Beatles had their White Album, we had our Black Album", said Vanian. "The sleeve isn't related to the Beatles in any way". However, Scabies said: "Of course it was to do with the Beatles, I was so sick about the debates of what we should have on the front of it. I said: 'Put the thing in a plain black sleeve and we'll have a go at the Beatles and The White Album'". The live tracks were reissued in their own right, with four extra tracks, as Live Shepperton 1980. The first subsequent reissue of The Black Album on CD reinstated "Curtain Call" and the original artwork, and the 2005 double-CD reissue also reinstated the live tracks.
Tour
The 28-date Black Album UK tour began in November 1980, with reformed 1970s streetpunk band the Straps as support.
Reception
In a retrospective review, AllMusic called the album hit-or-miss, but added that "tracks of note are still thick on the ground" and that "it's still a surprisingly good blast, a tour de force for Vanian particularly".
Track listing
;Note
The song titled "Second Time Around" was also known as "Machine Gun Etiquette", the title track from the band's previous album.
"White Rabbit" – recorded at Wessex Studios, April 1980; scheduled for a UK single release in June 1980, it got as far as a test pressing before being cancelled; released in France and Germany only but arrived in the UK on import in July
"There Ain't No Sanity Clause" – recorded at Rockfield Studios, May–June 1980; released as a single on 24 November 1980
"Looking At You" – recorded live at Shepperton Studios, 26 July 1980; B-side to "There Ain't No Sanity Clause"
