San Francisco’s association with Flower Power tends to overshadow its late-70s exports; namely the under the sink festering of its eclectic punk bacterium, which in the context of analogy is a good thing artistically, although not so in any other. Pitch shifted vocals, and a heavier reliance on both drum machines and synthesisers in comparison to their earlier, faster in pace abrasions is likely to be the happiest medium within their creative output for people who presumably want to strike a healthy balance between experimentalism and accidentally straying into easy listening (doesn’t apply here) that would cause the puritanical fringe to react with irritation. P.S. Damon Edge, one of their principal members, died.

Interpreting the word industrial and configuring it into something quite literal, for example; implements, pipes and other miscellaneous objects the uninventive would flatly dismiss are utilised as instrumentation, to resourceful, concussive effect. One would hope that they would endear themselves into getting prospective listeners to forgive them, if you were to envision that they were somehow transposed as horrified venue owner unfortunate enough to endure the artistic vandalism they were known for. The consistent whisper to a wheezing, horse-scream inflections and the detached choral deliveries as accessory must have been enough to make any commercially shrewd music industry executive swallow their cigar while still aflame, to the presumed detriment of their innards.

If it were opposite day this record would have to be the most commercially viable product to ever emerge from the mid 1980s, although reality states otherwise. The record’s volatility can be owed with a certainty to the instrumental buzzsaw that is Steve Albini’s guitar playing, and the orderly drum machine that was credited as if it were a person; as well as the other, slightly more orthodox guitarist and bassist playing second fiddle. The lack of any filter on the lyrical matter (self immolation and sexual abuse amongst others) is unsurprisingly far more thought provoking than any of the sanctimonious shtick you typically find with social commentary. That kind of boldness, alongside their ardent pursuit of independence (in all respects) is sadly a scarce commodity.

The crucial juncture, where the vintage (by today’s standards) industrial style evolved into the post-modernist, platinum-selling force it become in the 1990s, can arguably be traced back to this peculiar entity from Vancouver’s scene. With pleasantly named track listings complimented by the saturation of samples and the significant altering of essentially all sounds heard (vocals and beats salient) into something more artificial than a stem cell constructed organ destined for prospective transplant. The preconceived stereotype all peoples have thought about the stated subject genre fits with this entry more than any other listed; literally the whole cyberpunk/faux gutting theatricality was their construction, ripe for emulation by their (now better known) compatriots.

A conjecture on Islamic extremism, with a sparse, echoing delivery; a kind of abstract, listen more than once collection that would guarantee any marketing department assigned is all but destined to failure, leading to the direct violation of their grand mission statement claims and loss of face at whatever country club the department’s decision makers happened to frequent. The dilapidated circuitry has a rather pleasant drilling sensation to it, as though you remain fully aware you are about to undergo a lobotomy (continuation of the marketing dilemma?) due to a lack of anaesthesia, yet in spite of the predicament one remains puzzlingly indifferent. Sheffield, as a known hub of industry, has a lot to do with the moulding of Dadaist-club-name-appropriated trio’s sound? By that logic, how does that explain Def Leppard?