There's a common misconception that on their road to Rock superstardom Southern Death Cult became Death Cult and then simply The Cult but that is, of course, not true. Ian Astbury left the excellent Southern Death Cult and followed that route however the rest of the band (David "Buzz" Burrows, Barry Jepson and Haq Nawaz "Aky" Qureshi) continued as the ill-fated Getting The Fear after recruiting vocalist Paul "Bee" Hampshire.
Getting The Fear got off to a positive start but ultimately fell foul of record company politics and disbanded after releasing just one single (a retrospective album "Death Is Bigger 1984 - 1985" would finally appear in 2021 on the Dais Records label).
Barry and Bee then continued together forming Into A Circle, releasing a total of four singles between 1985 and 1988 and their excellent debut album "Assassins" which came out in 1988 before splitting the following year. The duo would surprise fans by reuniting and releasing a new album 32 years later when "Steel Box" appeared in 2021.
"Assassins" has become a bit of a lost classic to all but the hardcore fans and is well worth exploring if it's not already on your radar. Rose McDowall of Strawberry Switchblade added her instantly recognisable voice to the album providing the perfect counterpoint to Bee's vocal and adding a harmonic dimension rather than a second lead. Musically the band are often seen as Goth but that is largely due to the heritage of their former bands and "Assassins" drifts somewhere in the realms of indie, dream pop whilst the more jangly elements of 80's goth are evident in both the opening track "Beneath" and it's closer "Seraphin Twin" which also arguably displays an electronic dance beat. Elsewhere there is the rhymical tabla laden "Allah Akhbar" and title track which tells the tale of Hassan-I Sabbah, the mercenary that founded the order of Assassins, although it is a million miles from the Hawkwind song of the same name!
Singles "Forever" and the excellent "Evergreen" both broke the Indie Chart Top Ten but they were perhaps a bit too unique to crossover into the mainstream in the ways that some of their contemporaries managed, maybe if they had then "Assassins" might have lost some of it's charm!
We can only imagine what the second album would have sounded like if it had followed at the time, there's no doubt that "Steel Box" is a welcome addition to their discography however different it may sound, but "Assassins" remains an absolute classic however you want to define it!
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