Tones on Tail “The Album Pop”

Tones on Tail “The Album Pop” 1984. Beggars Banquet/PVC Records, US release. The only full-length release from Tones on Tail, Daniel Ash’s and Kevin Haskins’ ‘side project’ nicely rounded out the space between Bauhaus and Love and Rockets by combining dark goth, industrial and doom-and-dance pop. It even gets jazzy at points, the walking bass line and brush snare in “Happiness” evoking a suited-stroll down dark club alleys in rainy London. “Go!” is industrial dance at its finest, a sound that remerged significantly on Love and Rocket’s later releases. “Christian Says” is begging for a darkly shrouded dance floor lit only with eery flashes of strobes giving glimpses of black-clad figures wildly flailing. And “Movement of Fear” could not be better titled: barren and sinister with the sad strains of a lone saxophone.