With a history now stretching over a quarter century, a name taken from Punk's patented shock tactics yearbook (1977 vintage) and an ear for dancefloor-related developments all present and correct, it's tempting to view SEVERED HEADS as spiritual Antipodean cousins of electro pioneers like Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide. Especially when they made (can possibly still make) music as engaging as can be found on "Rotund For Success."
SH were the offspring of obscure, tape-twiddling duo Mr. & Mrs.No Smoking Sign and only really came into their own with the 1980 arrival of Tom Ellard, the man who would basically become Severed Heads for the next two and a half (and counting) decades. Their history of annoying notoriously reactionary Australian pub rock audiences and dodging peoples' attempts to pigeonhole them as an 'industrial' band are well-documented and their personnel shuffles are too complex to enter into here, but suffice it to say by the time they'd signed to Volition (Australia) and Nettwerk (Canada) in 1985, Ellard was taking much more interest in writing lyrics and fronting the band as a live proposition and quietly enjoying both electro and guitar pop on the side.
But the event that led to the sound of the band's most successful album "Rotund For Success" in 1989 was Ellard's meeting with Sydney DJ/ producer Robert Racic. Although Racic never actually became a Severed Heads member as such, he used an office above Ellard's HQ and became involved by producing and mixing "Greater Reward": the song which - with the possible exception of the legendary "Dead Eyes Open" - would go on to become SH'S most successful single, even making Billboard's Top 10 Dance Chart in 1988.
Listening to it now, it's no surprise that "Greater Reward" was so successful. Its' bouncy, zeitgeist-chasing pop sass brings the likes of New Order and Yello to mind and reinvents Severed Heads' previous wilful experimentation into something unabashedly commercial. It's a trick that's repeated by Racic on the album's opening track "All Saints Day", which sounds like a sparser take on the sound New Order arrived at with "Fine Time" from one of their career highlights "Technique."
Although Racic's dancefloor savvy is missing from the rest of the album, it's clear his methods had impinged on Ellard's way of thinking, as a fair chunk of the remainder of "Rotund For Success" also makes a leap towards commercial higher ground, not least on tracks like "Bad Times Too" and "Big Car". The former is tuneful kook-pop which Ellard had prepared for a soundtrack to a staging of the musical "Hair" ( I kid you not), while with its' kaleidoscopic keyboards and bouncy, Arthur Baker premise, "Big Car" is again pleasantly sprightly.
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Indeed, even when falling into a grey area between SH's earlier tape loop experiments and the new dancefloor-friendly incarnation, "Rotund For Success" mostly engages. "Triangle Tangle Tango", for instance, melds the crazed splicings with a dubby mentality before finally resembling unsettling electro-pop, and both the title track and the immortally-titled "LFM (Lovesick Fascist Meathead)" inhabit an intriguing twilight zone between radio-friendly electronic pop and the lure of the obscure.
In typical LTM fashion, the whole picture emerges with the arrival of several extra tracks tagged on at the end. These include Ellard's original, pre-Rasic mix of "All Saints Day", which is still getting there, but in need of Rasic's commercial nous and dancefloor sheen, and a couple of intriguing tracks ("Bombs Fell" and "Star Spangled Bradbury") which again straddle the commercial/ obscurist hurdle facing Ellard at the time. "Star Spangled Bradbury" features sometime Severed Head Garry Bradbury and its' scuttly electro burbling may well be an earlier "Triangle Tangle Tango", with an additional disembodied Muezzin-style wail drifting in for good measure.
Severed Heads continue to this day, and deserve credit for being one of the first bands to recognise the possibilities of the internet and also for their first soundtrack commission for the 2004 feature film, "The Illustrated Family Doctor": an area where their music has long been heading. That they have remained true to their original innovative ideal is undeniable, but if you want to catch them at their commercial pinnacle, then "Rotund For Success" is still the obvious point of entry. And probably the best place for the uninitiated to start into the bargain.
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