Leatherhead
July 1985

Sounds
6th July 1985
by Johnny Waller

KiILL UGLY POP? These Messiahs aren't even pop, they're just ugly! Psychotic pub-rock with bulging veins, monotone vocals, screeching guitar and a bunch of songs about as revolutionary as Dr Feelgood.

These screamers have but one motivation: rage. They bitch and moan and rant and scowl and never ever smile. Nor do they consider such passing attributes as love, hope, ambition, entertainment or even the merest hint of melody as possible weapons of communication.

What SBM try to fob us off with as music is really just National Health self-induced paranoia. They screamed and screamed, but in the end nobody could be bothered to listen anymore.

Perhaps the audience had enough problems of their own, or perhaps they were still bathing in the captivating glow created by Ipso Facto.

Refining the post-punk melodrama of the Ants and the Banshees, IF reach back to Ziggy for a streak of glamour and to The Doors for a whiff of theatre. They pout, they strut and – with the sublime 'Glass Tigers' – they prove to have the sheer charisma that turns mere onlookers into devotees.