In Yer Face
808 State (ZTT)

From the first deep breathy utterance of the song's title on the 12-Inch mix, "In Yer Face" has a good 25 seconds of interesting percussion and melody as the song builds up to full dance-club pace. But from there proceedings become disappointingly predictable. The flip-side, "Leo-Leo (Poonchanting Instrumental)", part industrial/part tribal, is a far more worthy and quirky exercise by these Mancunian arbiters of dance fashion.

[Reviewer: JOHN MANGAN]

WELL 'ARD

808 STATE 'In Yer Face'
ZTT

808 State haven't always convinced, and they've certainly got a dedicated band of detractors. This one's fine though. Tougher than a navvy's arm (but not as dirty as 'Cubik'), 'In Yer Face' reaffirms their ability to tread exactly where they like when they like, and their status as innovators. I'm just puzzled about why that sample definitely says "your".

[Reviewer: Phil Cheeseman]

808 STATE

'In Yer Face (Edit)'

(ZTT)

There's a nasty suspicion of Jean Michel Jarre being upgraded to danceability status here. Electronic instrumentals have always been some of the most profoundly narcissistic and inane meanderings to squirm out of the music industry's effluent pipe, and this changes nothing. All that's happened since it first surfaced in the '70s has been a change of emphasis. Once upon a time it was music to get stoned to in dingy bedsits draped with Indian scarves, now it gets danced to in dingy clubs sprayed in day-glo. Set up the scarf franchise now.

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

808 STATE
IN YER FACE (EDIT) (ZTT)

PRESUMABLY in response to a Nineties dance that relies ever more heavily on antiseptic surface moods and prog rock ambience, 808 State have recorded an aggressive gargantuan monster of a track. Filthy scuffed-up synths pivot on some very, very heavy-duty bass (both bass and beat are positively industrial) and the whole brilliantly ugly shebang is parenthesised by ominous warnings of imminent apocalypse. Well, maybe not apocalypse, but whatever it is, its certain imminent - yup, in yer face.

This is what House would sound like if you shoved it through Joe Strummer's fuzzbox and had Blixa Bargeld on percussion. By the way, we think the bass was, er, "inspired" by 70 Gwen Party's "War, Track And Field". But who gives a f***

Not just a bolshy git after all, eh Mart?

[Reviewer: THE STUD BROTHERS]

808 STATE 'In Yer Face'
(ZTT ZANG 14T, via WEA)

Hitting on promo well ahead of its February 11 release, this Yazoo-ishly chorded juddery bright rumbling bleeper sounds something like an electronic jungle, in noisy though slow synth (and some narration about America which may need editing in the current situation) started In Yer Face Mix (116¼bpm) and calmer started then rattling Facially Yours Remix (115¾bpm) versions, flipped by the odd jerkily clanking and lurching electro reggae 'Leo Leo' (123¾bpm) frantically ragga rapped by Raagman (apparently one of MC Tunes' dancers), with its Poonchanting Instrumental too.

[Reviewer: James Hamilton]