(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Eyeless In Gaza were one of the most original and “different” groups of the late British new wave. The lineup resembled that of Suicide (singer Martyn Bates and electronic keyboardist Peter Becker), but the sound was entirely different: a twilight pop performed with a vast arsenal of acoustic, electric and electronic instruments, and sung in a melodramatic tone. Martyn Bates had already been a member of Migraine, a minor progressive-rock group.

From as early as Photographs As Memories (Cherry Red, 1980) and Caught In Fire (Cherry Red, 1981), that style lent itself to sketching intriguing instrumental backdrops, but was undermined by the vocals. The following year saw the release of their worst album, Pale Hands (Uniton, 1982), and what remains perhaps a slightly more respectable one, Drumming The Beating Heart (Cherry Red, 1982), featuring the sentimental One By One and Lights Of April. The peak of their arrangements is perhaps to be found on Rust Red September (Cherry Red, 1983), which, with a singer worthy of the name, might at least have been a good soft-pop album. The adventure ended with Back From The Rains (Cherry Red, 1986). The best of their output, especially the singles, would later be collected on Voice (1996).

Despite the critical and commercial failure of the project, Bates—who had already tried his hand at the EP Letters Written (Cherry Red, 1982), destined to remain the pinnacle of his work (First And Last February, Later War Cries)—returned to the scene with a series of solo albums, all marked by rare artistic poverty. While The Return Of The Quiet (Cherry Red, 1987) attempts to beef up his pop-soul with a string section and drums, Love Smashed On A Rock (Integrity, 1989) and the mini-album Port Of Stormy Lights (Sordide Sentimentale) merely demonstrate his boundless ambition, utterly disproportionate to his means, and this would remain the theme of his career, from the more substantial Letters To A Scattered Family (Antler Subway, 1989) to the embarrassing attempt to set Joyce’s poems to music on Chamber Music 1 (Sub Rosa, 1994) and Chamber Music II (Sub Rosa, 1996). In the guise of a fairground Peter Hammill, Bates continues to dish out acute melancholy without supporting it with adequate lyrics, melodies or harmonies.

Bates’s career has almost always displayed a fundamental flaw: relying heavily on melody when Bates has very little melodic talent. Some of his ideas as a composer and arranger were at least original, but the execution is almost always of sub-amateur quality.