The Australian band known as Severed Heads - a musical unit which has, by and large since 1981, been mainstay Tom Ellard and whomever else he has on board with him - are a name which has slipped under the radar for many as a group seriously worth considering, and seriously worth liking. Well, perhaps I should really just speak for myself, as that scenario happens to fit moi, and perhaps few others. After all, it's only in the past 18 months that I've managed to familarise myself with their excellent output from their early days (1980 - '85 is where you really want to be), and the greatness of this material has truly blown me away.
My disinterest in the band possibly stems from seeing some of their later video clips on late-night TV shows in the late '80s such as Rock Arena, at which point they'd made quite a name for themselves in the US college circuit as a slightly slicker but still avant electronic dance-oriented outfit (or EBM - Electric Body Music - if we must); this schtick posed little interest for a rock-slob such as myself at the time, and doesn't register a great deal more interest 30 years later. But - there's always a but - the roots of the band, which saw them releasing all kinds of independent/self-released tapes and 7"s and were flying around the same circle as other hardy underground grunters such as SPK and the Slugfuckers, are of great interest.
1983's Since The Accident was actually released on a major label at the time, Virgin subsidiary Ink (and Nettwerk in some territories), with the single off the album, 'Dead Eyes Opened' being a kind of indie 'hit' here (and elsewhere) and, well, apparently when it was re-released in 1994 it went into the mainstream top 20(?!). Man, I was pretty drunk that year, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't remember that happening. But happen it did. All this is kinda strange because, well, I guess I just find it unusual that a challenging/interesting/good recording from the 1980s actually found any traction with a larger audience at the time, because this period of the band for me is their apex, when they were melding their early industrial/experimental roots with more songcraft, much in the same way as bands like Cabaret Voltaire (ca. 1979 - 1982) and Psychic TV did at the time.
The 'hit' single, 'Dead Eyes Opened', for one, is a brilliant slice of noisy Kraftwerkian electro-pop with occasional stabs of white noise throughout, and others, like 'God Song' and 'Exploring The Secrets Of Treating Deaf Mutes', are pure cold/dark wave gems, combining grim, urban noise and samples/loops with an underlying 'pop' (as in actual songs) sensibility which makes this highly listenable 30+ years later. Yes, I think I was the last guy to the party.
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