400 Blows – Beat the Devil

7″, Concrete Productions, 1982

Also from 1982, this doomy little charmer. Cast your minds back… back… way baaaacck into pop history, to a time when “industrial” didn’t mean hammering drum machines and metal guitars. This little darling, poised pretty much exactly between 23 Skidoo and Cabaret Voltaire, is especially tasty in its swampy, bass-heavy b-side version. Later they went more dancey, as did so many of the early industrial culture types, and then metamorphosed into acts like The Moody Boys and founded BPM and Warrior Records. Check out the inner sleeve’s playlist (in the archive) for a preview of where they would try to take their sound. Not quite the NWW list, eh?

A. Beat the Devil
B. The Beat Continues

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