Music For Pleasure - Chrome Hit Corrosion

Another band I consider a lost gem of the 80s is Music For Pleasure, from Leeds. After some early singles on indie Rage Records, they released one album and associated singles on Polydor in 1982-83. Saltyka's blog collects most of Music For Pleasure'1980-83 output ; he describes them as having

a sound somewhere around The Chameleons (not so folk-like),Killing Joke (not so wild),early Duran Duran (not so easy listening), The Church arond '84-'85 ( for example the beautiful "Winterscene") .Can you imagine the band Tenploe Tudor playing synth-pop ("Human Factor") and Michael Cretu playing as a guest musician with his '83 sound in the song "Madness At The Mission"? And so on.

Those are all good comparisons; I've always thought of them as sounding like Simple Minds in their New Gold Dream/Sparkle in the Rain period, with the keyboard textures of the former and the greater energy of the latter. Chrome Hit Corrosion is a four-song EP from 1984 on the band's own Whirlpool label (having been dropped by Polydor). The lineup for this release is: Mark Copson (voice), Christopher Oldroyd (drums), Ivor Roberts (bass), and David Whitaker (PPG and Emulator); the same as the original 1979 lineup except for Roberts replacing Martin King on bass. Notice there are no guitars; Whitaker plays some pretty good faux-guitar on the synths, especially a big fat riff in the second half of "Walking." He would later replace Lyndon Scarfe in The Danse Society. Copson puts more into his vocals than on previous records, at times growling in a way that we would later hear from Ian Astbury and Glenn Danzig. Music For Pleasure released another single ("Disconnection") and an album (Blacklands) before breaking up; I don't have either of those, but I'm always on the lookout. Get Chrome Hit Corrosion here or here.