Album Review: The Rezillos - Zero

There’s nothing tougher than a ‘70s UK punk band.

The Rezillos are living proof of that, having survived, on and off, almost 40 years - dodging wider notoriety all the way. Okay, there was a brief flirtation with fame in the late ‘70s with a top 20 British hit, a signing with a big US label and scoring a bit of TV play in Australia when they repurposed themselves as The Revillos. However, it was only members who left that experienced serious brushes with fame (one Rezillo joined The Human League and another joined Teardrop Explodes).

But here they are  back as The Rezillos, still centred around core couple Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds, dropping a new album of first-wave punk sounds. Honed on four decades of pub gigging, The Rezillos deliver cut-through guitar and cuts-like-a-machete vocals over nearly-always-on-the-verge-of-hyperventilating rhythms. And, the songs are short - eight of the 12 tracks come in under three minutes.

Zero revs from scuzzy garage (The Groovy Room) and Blondie circa-Plastic Letters (She’s The Bad One) and brawling pub punk (Life’s A Bitch) to their signature sci-fi and spy-fi punk (Nearly Human, Spike Heel Assassin). 

With Zero now existing you can no longer get nostalgic listening to old Rezillos records and think, “They just don’t make 'em like this anymore” - 'coz obviously they do.