The cliche used to be third album, not sure when it changed to difficult second album. A lot of bands used to have enough material for a couple of albums when they started releasing albums so the second album was usually just a continuation of the first with maybe better production and a bit more development to the songs over time. The third album used to be the problem because they hadn't written anything new in ages and were sort of forced to. The second continuation of the first album seems to have been skipped now as people release material far earlier in their careers
Anyway back on topic.
Brum's finest post-punk debut?
The magnificent Au Pairs and their debut Playing with a Different Sex. If you've never heard this album, you really need to
The album has one flaw IMO and that is the inclusion of a rerecorded It's Obvious (their breakout single), a great song but it was re-recorded to fit in with the album's overall sound. The single version is better and they should have just used a different song. If you were unaware of the single, it's fine but if you were aware,
One of the albums bits of genius is the obscure Bowie cover version, Repetition. It was years later I discovered it was a cover because it absolutely fits into the albums whole political ethos, you'd have no reason to suspect it was written by someone else
The other really impressive thing about the album is, that after 2 singles, the band produced this themselves. The production is a good number of steps up on the singles, you really would be under the impression that they'd used a producer
Still listen to this album today (I own three copies!), even though some of the political themes are now completely dated. Also highly influential on what followed, the Gang of Four got all the plaudits, the Au Pairs over time have influenced far more