The key detail to this album is that the band had all of one day to record their debut. They had been booked for five, but front man MES fell sick, scuttling three scheduled days of work. That little factor is both the best and worst thing that could’ve happened to this LP. The sonic template for the band was well in place — guitar lines scratching at incessant keyboard melodies, the rhythm section in a constant hurry to keep up — but they had no time to perfect it. Karl Burns’ occasionally sloppy drum fills and the bum notes pop up throughout. (Of course, 35 years later, that wonky quality feels downright charming.) As well, the truncated sessions offered MES and co. no chance to help rescue the weaker material here. With some extra time, perhaps producer Bob Sargeant could have talked them into hacking MES’s tirade against the current “Music Scene” in half or finding the rhythmic center in “Two Steps Back.”

For its various audible flaws and sketchy quality control, MES turns in a very cohesive set of lyrics here. He’s as frustrated as his punk peers with the state of his home country — “The crap in the air will fuck up your face…boss can take most of your wage,” he spits during “Industrial Estate” — but he’s just as frustrated with what the music scene has devolved into. Drugs are infecting the scene (“There is no Christmas for junkies,” “amphetamine frightened”) as well as the whiff of fame promised by shady record execs (“And aye you’re a good lad/Oh here is a new flat/That stupid twat”). The reports we’re hearing from these witch trials are very grim, but we can’t look away.