Singles reviewed

Freak Storm/Rachel Clean
by Bob Stanley, NME, June 11th 1988

The Hellfire Sermons… are a completely unknown quantity. I'd heard about them from a friend who reckoned it was the best single he'd bought for two years! And yes, it is spare, taut, deft, while remaining churchbell-chiming melodic. The group most likely to come up with the next "Sun Shines Here" and that is a mighty recommendation.

H.O.N.E.Y.M.O.O.N
by Everett True, Melody Maker, December 16th 1989

In case you didn't realize, Hellfire Sermons are a "rated" teenage punk rock (in the '78 spirit, attitude and energy, not conformity) kick-ass combo from Liverpool. H.O.N.E.Y.M.O.O.N is strangely muted, suffering from harsh realities such as costing and production, but sounds all the better for it. A gentle, beguiling rhythm leads you, sucks you under its carefree beat, and just as you're being lulled into tranquility, a fuzzed guitar bursts in and shakes up preconceptions.

Not one to hurry; if pressed I'd compare it to early Creation (Jasmines, Biff! Bang! Pow!) or early Kitchenware (Hurrah!) but there's something else here again which eats its way inside without you ever understanding why. Intriguing; an understated pop classic.

Not Nailed Down/The Best Laugh I Ever Had
by Everett True, Melody Maker, August 17th 1991

Any other week, chaps. Really…

Guitars spark furiously in a frantic effort to get the message across as fast as coherently possible. I say 'get the message', but really I'm just superimposing my own prejudices on this really rather convulsing song. I'm supposing that the urgency of the beat and the odd line I can make out make this a protest song of some kind. But this is a presupposition, charged by the feeling of righteous angst the song engenders.

Still, knowing what I know about Hellfire Sermons and having seen their frenetic brand of noise/pop live (imagine a lineage tracing back through Big Flame, Fire Engines, The Smiths and forward to a poppier Manic Street Preachers), I don't suppose I'm far wrong.

by Penny Kiley, Liverpool Echo, July 6th 1991

Hellfire Sermons are the sort of band who go resolutely their own way and sound all the better for it. This (Best Laugh) is a slow, pretty, occasionally strange track which is not afraid of the unexpected. Not Nailed Down is fast, scratchy and funny and features an appealingly unfashionable guitar sound (not a wah-wah pedal in sight!)

The sort of thing that makes you believe 'indie' could still stand for 'individual'. Next local date is August 22nd (1991!) at the Everyman Bistro.

Covered In Love
by Everett True, Melody Maker, December 5th 1992

As raw and bloody as 1992 gets.

Hellfire Sermons are like a spirited cross between early Manics, the first Scars single and someone abrasive like The Fire Engines. The way the voice snarls and grates at the beginning of each line is balm to my doo-wopped-out ears.

"People say that I'm crazy," the half-crazed, delirious boy yells, like it's only just dawned on him. It gladdens my heart to hear someone so defiantly British.

I always thought of Hellfire Sermons as male Riot Grrrls long before that term was invented. "Covered In Love" even lifts a line from a Pixies song (the "You are, you are, you are, you are" bit out of "Debaser") to major effect. The B-side mentions "La-la-lola" (as in the Kinks), so I assume this must be deliberate. God, where he screams "He-e-e-yyy"….!

This is music with menaces. F***in' magnificent.

by Penny Kiley, Liverpool Echo, December 18th 1992

Hellfire Sermons don't release records very often, but when they do they are worth waiting for. Their new single was record of the week in a national music paper recently. Covered In Love is defiantly indie - an offbeat record with some pretty guitar sounds and unsettling vocals, alternately tense and melodic.

by Barbara Ellen, NME, January 2nd 1993

Disjointed, neurotic ramblings, guitars that appear to have only one string and harmonies that sound like a box of dying puppies make 'Covered In Love' an astonishing, if not comfortable or even particularly good cheapo, small label release. Musically minimal (the best way when you're minimally talented, believe me) non-conformist and torturously soul-raking, Hellfire Sermons are Alan Vega for people who wash car windscreens at traffic lights for a quid and give your little brother his first herbal cigarette. Listen and enjoy.

Sarasine
by Sarah Kestle, Melody Maker, January 8th 1994

Another f***ed-up, chopped up and thrown in the acid bath seven-inch gem from those Pixies-fixated Liverpudlians who crank out a single every time they can afford to - roughly once a year. This is up to their usual blistering standard.

The guitars are strung out, naggingly intense, as is the singer who switches effortlessly from a teeth-gritting falsetto to a bloody roar of "How far will you go?" Never far enough it seems. It's way too short and way too good to be ignored. Music to listen to as you lovingly rip out your partner's insides.