DESCRIPTION:
Given where the Gordons eventually ended up with Bailter Space, it's little surprise that the band's excellent first album sounds the way it does, with Parker's instantly recognizable vocals on "Spik and Span" already shot through with the weary energy that made later albums like Thermos and Robot World so grand. There are definite hints of Mark E. Smith's snarl and whine in his approach, but even more impressive is the group's ear for structured melancholy and explosion. The comparisons after the fact to Sonic Youth were understandable, but it's more accurate to say that in the early-'80s they were both listening to plenty of things like Wire and Joy Division and translating it accordingly.