Shriekback
English rock band
Shriekback are an English rock band formed in 1981 in Kentish Town by Barry Andrews, formerly of XTC and the League of Gentlemen (keyboards/synthesizers/vocals), and Dave Allen, formerly of Gang of Four (bass guitar), with Carl Marsh, formerly of Out on Blue Six (guitars/vocals) soon added to the line-up. The band's early music was a funk-influenced version of new wave and post-punk, later moving towards art rock and always featuring "insidiously weird vocals".
History
The band enjoyed some success on the dance chart on its original Y Records label and had a string of hits on the UK Indie Chart, while its first album, Care (1983), was picked up by Warner in the United States. The band left Y for Arista Records for Jam Science (1984), also recruiting the drummer Martyn Barker. The album reached number 85 on the UK Albums Chart and "Hand on my Heart" was a number 52 UK single. The 1985 album Oil and Gold was recorded on Arista (released by Island Records in the US). Marsh left Shriekback during the recording of Oil and Gold and was replaced on guitar by Mike Cozzi, with Andrews taking over lead vocals. Shriekback also left Arista and signed to Island Records for whom they recorded Big Night Music (1986), after which Allen left to rejoin Gang of Four, and Shriekback remained a collaborative centred on Andrews. Allen also went on to play in King Swamp and The Elastic Purejoy. Marsh was also in the band Happyhead.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3482609. VIAF identifies the subject as 124488491. The Library of Congress control number is n91124191. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1983, 1984 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shriekback” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.