The Alarm: Strength (1985)

These guys from Wales seemed to walk the line between indie respectability and commercial appeal back in my college radio days, not quite crossing over, but a little too slick to fit in with the cooler emerging indie acts. Personally, they never quite won me over, and I didn't spend much time with their records, though I found playing a stray song here and there on my radio shows would help break up my more US-centric inclinations at the time (primarily R.E.M., Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Feelies, ...