City Slab Horror (CD)

Although they began as a multi-member band, Australian electronic act Severed Heads was always understood to be the brain child of one Tom Ellard. The outfit began in the early 1980s as a willfully dissonant experiment that used the technology of the day to produce a version of the early industrial sound. Ellard soon embraced the synth-pop styles of the era, and developed a highly original version of the two seemingly opposite forms. Although Ellard has possessed an eclectic musical palette, the Severed Heads have remained firmly within the realm of electronic music, positioning the act as an often overlooked influence on the development and rise of techno music.

• Category:  Music  »  Rock & Pop  »  General Rock & Pop
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: January 8, 1996
• Label: Nettwerk America
• UPC: 067003003322
• WAPI (Tower ID): 106683725
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Since 1979, Severed Heads' brand of post-industrial new wave has defied convention--conflating the farthest reaches of experimental sound with some of the most melodic synth-pop since early Depeche Mode. Using reel-to-reel tape recorders to assemble fragments of found sound--smashing melons, warped LPs, and TV dialogue--into rhythmic loops, their bold, decidedly unconventional methods prefigured the sampladelic, cut-and-paste aesthetic of hip-hop and DJ-driven dance music by nearly a decade. Fashioning a bold hybrid of avant-garde and pop sensibilities on CITY SLAB HORROR, the 1985 album splits the difference between the group's noisy industrial beginnings and later dance-pop sensibilities.

Lacking much of the studio gloss of their New Wave peers, Severed Heads were more akin to an electronic garage band. Utilizing a battery of primitive drum machines and sequencers amidst buzz-saw guitar noise, lead man Tom Ellard's buoyant vocals rises above the grinding machine din like a more agreeable version of Gary Numan--especially on the bouncy synth-pop number "4.W.D." Among more dissonant tracks such as the bleak synthesizer piece "Guests," and the harsh industrial crunch of "Cyflear Rated R," is the surprisingly melodic off-world exoticism of "We Have Come to Bless This House." Featuring a chipper synth arpeggio against the dulcet glossolalia of an Arabic vocalist, it anticipates similar world-music/electronica hybrids by several years.

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