Subhumans

Few British punk bands of the early 1980s wore their politics as openly as Subhumans, the Wiltshire group whose name alone hinted at their unease with the world. Rooted in Warminster and Melksham, they are usually filed under hardcore punk or anarcho-punk, and singer Dick Lucas arrived with experience from an earlier local outfit, the Mental. Their music moved well beyond its hardcore starting point, and that shift makes their catalogue worth revisiting.

Their story starts with a demo that reached Flux of Pink Indians, whose members were impressed enough to put out the debut EP Demolition War on their new Spiderleg Records in December 1981. The band then launched Bluurg Records, and in 1982 the album The Day The Country Died appeared, now generally regarded as a classic of the anarcho-punk era. The 1983 follow-up, From the Cradle to the Grave, showed real development, not least in its title track, a progressive piece that filled an entire side and ran for almost 17 minutes. After splitting in late 1985, the band returned in 1998 and released the album Crisis Point in 2019, their first in 12 years.