A British sextet from Leicester with two vocalists (Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard), the Prolapse did not fit well in the vain Brit-pop scene of the 1990s. They embodied pretty much everything that Brit-pop aimed to erase: neuroses, tensions, insecurity. In keeping with the British ritual, their career was launched by the EPs Crate (Cherry Red, 1994), Pull Thru Barker (Cherry Red, 1994) and Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc (Cherry Red, 1994), three vitriolic indictments of pop music that resorted to abominable harmonic practices to demolish extant musical taboos.

Pointless Walks To Dismal Places (Cherry Red, 1994) was no less frantic, chaotic and dissonant. While the singers intone their psychopatic call and response, the guitars and the rhythm section hammer around casually. If the singles had presented a group of musicians with a wild imagination, the album showed them intent to carving an artistic persona somewhere between Sonic Youth, Pere Ubu and Fall.

Backsaturday (Lissy's, 1995 - Jetset, 1996) is even more uncompromising: seven tracks of angular and abrasive noise-rock that hardly sizzle at all. After the relatively relaxed beginning of TCR and the instrumental Mein Minefield Mine Landmine, guitarists Dave Jeffreys and Pat Marsden charge full speed with their spastic imitation of Red Krayola and Faust. The 15-minute blistering nightmare Flex is the tour de force, but Every Night I'm Mentally Crucified better deserves the role of centerpiece, while Zen Nun Deb, with its nods to dark-punk, could be the masterpiece.

After a long hiatus, Prolapse released The Italian Flag (Jetset, 1998), a collection of more mature and refined songs. The sound is less aggressive, more melodic. The main attraction is definitely the vocal harmonies, that offer the sharpest contrast since male/female harmony was invented. Witness the way Steelyard's ethereal vocals duet with Derrick's punk neurosis in Slash Oblique. Derrick's pseudo-Clash punk emphasis detonates the square dance of Deanshanger while Steelyard croons innocently over a bed of bagpipes. The narrative peak ought to be Flat Velocity Curve, where Derrick chats in a conversational tone while Steelyard chants like a cross between a disco-diva and a fairy queen, their dialogue propelled by a driving guitar raga. The underlying rhythm section is no less inventive, borrowing from different idioms of blues, country, rock and roll and even ethnic music. The hammering pace that bridges all songs teals the show at least in the soaring and psychedelic Return Of Shoes.
At her most angelic, Steelyard's sounds almost like Enya (Cacophony No A); at her most dramatic, she sounds like the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde (Killing The Bland). Her pure contralto embellishes the breezy Belly-esque Autocode, her witchy howl pierces the voodoobilly of A Day At Death Seaside. Her growth is mirrored by the growth of the band as a whole. Each song can be said to be completely different from the others. The only drawback is that none of this very creative compositions stands out as a fully accomplished masterpiece.

Steelyard's charisma totally prevails on Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes (Jetset, 1999) and somehow it manages to downplay the brutal dissonance of previous works. Essence Of Cessna, Cylinder V12 Beats Cylinder 8 and Government Of Spain are certainly not upbeat and certainly not uplifting, but they float lighter over the cacophony of the foundations.