Subhumans – From The Cradle To The Grave LP purple*

With their eclectic influences and scintillating musicianship, Subhumans were never going to be content to trot out anarcho punk by numbers, but no-one was really prepared for the progressive brilliance of their sophomore album, From The Cradle To The Grave. Whilst the A-side contains nine short sharp bursts of energised punk, gleefully embracing all points of the spikey spectrum, from the breakneck thrash of Reality Is Waiting For A Bus to the ominous dirge of Wake Up Screaming, it is the ambitious title track that really captures the imagination, its sprawling sixteen-plus-minute running time telling the sorry tale of the human life cycle across a myriad of dynamic acts. If anyone was still in any doubt, it was the band defiantly setting out their stall as a creative entity that existed outside the stifling constraints of perceived musical sub-genres. Committed to tape by the visionary John Loder at Southern Studios at the tail end of 1983, it was released in April 1984 to widespread acclaim, and only kept from the No. 1 spot in the Independent Charts by New Order!