Zounds

The rather good anarchopunkers reviewed live in the NME, 15 August, 1981.

Zounds
Rock Garden

Before Zounds teamed up with Rough Trade, Crass helped to put out some of their material. With these kind of connections the band have libertarian written all over them – a sign of disaffection and invitations to reject Western Civilisation (you didn’t ask to be born into it!) and to take what’s left (this land is your land!).
Naturally the band have a hardcore punk following. Unexpectedly they aren’t as cliched as they look on paper. Their thrash is exhilarating and lightheaded and, however heartfelt the lyrics, bassist Steve Lake’s vocal whine can be ironical and tongue-in-cheek. What’s more, the intense riffing (Lawrence Wood on guitar) and tough beat (Joseph Porter on drums) have an open transatlantic touch, more garage band than punk. The trio certainly look garage: jeans and shirts and hair which they probably cut themselves – squat rockers!
And they do rock, bashing on regardless, relaxed in spite of bass which gave up at one point and a PA which for the first couple of numbers was about as loud as a Dansette. They even bashed on through songs with incredibly clumsy titles like ‘Demystification’, occasionally slowing down for something midtempo but no less raw.
Zounds exist in a timewarp but still have statements to make. They’re in a musical ghetto but don’t care, inviting people to take a listen if they want to. What they’d hear is sort of superior forward-looking Oi, headbanging for liberals and pogoing for teenage orphans. Zounds are the antennae of a marginalised race, and they’re neither pleased nor proud of the fact. They just want to get on with it. With a certain amount of perversity I get off on it.

Paul Tickell