Zounds - Demystification

ZOUNDS - DEMYSTIFICATION

A more conventional yet none the less powerful form of song writing was to be found in the next 7" single release by Zounds, entitled Demystification.

Following the huge success of their Can't Cheat Karma EP on the Crass label, Zounds had moved over to the Rough Trade record label for their second single and with that move came a slight change in the way they were perceived. If Zounds had their way they would probably have happily stayed on Crass Records but by this time Crass had decided on a policy of only releasing one record by any one band before letting them go on their own merry way.

Whether they were aware of it or not, Zounds were a very enigmatic band and in being lumped in with Rough Trade's roster of post-Punk groups such as The Fall, Cabaret Voltaire, the Monochrome Set and Swell Maps simply served to make them even more difficult to pigeon-hole. There was a mystique about Zounds that was actually only added to by them calling for "a demystification about what's going on".

Demystification was like a breath of agitated Pop Punk - drugged to the gills, abandoned in a bus station and told to make its own way home. Sounding as though fueled by equal measures of paranoia and chemically-induced awareness, vocalist Steve Lake sang of dark thoughts: "Now I hear they're counting numbers to store down in Whitehall. So much information what can they do with it all?"

In signing to Rough Trade, Zounds were provided with the medium of the glossy record cover as opposed to the Crass, black and white, fold-out affair; and it's the cover of Demystification that captured the essence of Zounds better than anything else.

Depicting a crowd of commuters emerging from a London underground tube station, all the commuters in the picture are shown to be blind-folded apart from one who is shown lifting the blind-fold he has on from his eyes. The subsequent look in his eyes is a mixture of terror, amazement, determination, paranoia and awe.

This look in his eyes was a near perfect depiction of Zounds.