Legendary English underground band Zounds first came to prominence in the early 1980s with a string of independent chart hits on Rough Trade and Crass Records. Growing out of the London-area squatter communities, they quickly became key figures in the burgeoning DIY / anarcho-punk scene and toured Europe with contemporaries such as The Mob, Poison Girls, Crass, The Birthday Party and many others. On record, their sound was more expansive than most punk of the era. In Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited, author Rob Young describes Zounds as “a distinctively paranoid and claustrophobic sonic crush that avoid[s] formulaic protest song.” Their Rough Trade album The Curse of Zounds! is now recognized as a classic of the genre and one of the most inspirational albums of the post-punk period.
