Klark Kent was the first solo project from any member of The Police, when the drummer Stewart Copeland started releasing singles in 1978 under the pseudonym. Eventually, a self-titled album was assembled, and various versions of that album have been reissued over the years.

This Deluxe Edition welcomes newly remastered versions of all the original non-album singles, the 1980 album in full and two previously unreleased studio tracks where Copeland plays all instruments and handles vocals, too.

The formerly unreleased “It’s Going To Rain” gets the listen off to a dense start, where thick drums and swirling guitars give the tune a hint of prog-rock. The swift, scrappy New Wave ideas of “Don’t Care” follows with plenty of quirkiness.

Further into the original LP, the rhythmic and key-heavy “Rich In A Ditch” is as colorful as it is timeless, while “Grandelinquent” concerns itself more with instrumentation than vocals, via its exploratory percussion and playful key progressions. The bouncy and melodic “Kinetic Ritual” exits the first half of the listen with flowing, cinematic qualities that embrace a more fusion approach to rock.

The non-album singles occupy the second half, starting with the upbeat and dance-floor ready “Thrills,” but it isn’t long until the animated and punk spirited “Too Kool To Kalypso” carries an anthemic delivery. “Strange Things Happen” then trims the pace back with a hazy, reggae feeling, before “Someone Else,” the other previously unreleased track, heads into darker areas that touch on post-punk, and welcomes spoken word to the textured climate.

An extremely creative listen, the CD version comes with 12 demo recordings, too, which, for those who really take to this sort of New Wave meets pop, will be a nice addition. For someone like myself, who is only familiar with a fraction of the work by The Police, this seemed like a very exciting distraction, that, all these decades later, has aged just as well as Copeland’s full band efforts.

Rating: A-

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