Luton, UK · goth rock · post-punk

UK Decay

1 festival played →

One of the bands that accidentally invented goth, still trading in cavernous, tribal post-punk — Luton's darkest export.

UK Decay grew out of another Luton band, the Resiztors, formed in 1978 by guitarist Steve “Abbo” Abbott, drummer Steven Harle, bassist Martin Smith and two singers. When the vocalists left in 1979 the remaining three carried on as UK Decay, with Abbott stepping up to sing as well as play guitar.

The band pressed its own first record, a split single with fellow Luton act Pneumania on their own Plastic Records label, which sold well partly thanks to a hostile NME review. Around the same time members ran a fanzine called The Suss and a punk shop, Matrix, and guitarist Steve Spon joined from Pneumania so Abbott could concentrate on singing.

Fresh Records picked the band up after an early EP spent over a year in the independent chart. The single “For My Country” brought John Peel airplay and a tour supporting Dead Kennedys, and “Unexpected Guest” reached number four on the indie chart. Their debut album, For Madmen Only, followed in December 1981 after a lengthy search for a permanent bassist.

It was during this period that Abbott, in an interview with Sounds, jokingly called the band's sound goth, a throwaway remark that helped fix the term to the wider movement, even though UK Decay considered themselves a punk band first.

When Fresh Records collapsed in 1982, the band bought back rights to their own catalogue and set up UK Decay Records, releasing the Rising from the Dread EP through Crass's Corpus Christi label before eventually splitting, issuing a posthumous live cassette, and later reforming to resume performing and recording.

Read more

goth rockpost-punk