Slash Magazine, November 1979

THE BPEOPLE, THE UNITS AND
THE MUTANTS AT THE HONG KONG


  It was only the 2nd time I saw the Units, and they were even better than the first. I was delighted to notice that the multimedia paraphernalia they vaguely toyed with the first time around was gone and that there was now nothing to distract from their great future dance music. I mean it's not all dance stuff, but most of it really sways and moves, not in the accepted pogo sense of the term or the disco sense or the get down boogie sense or the skanking sense (shut UP! Irritable Ed.) but in a new sense (brilliant!). As already mentioned a few weeks ago, the line-up is about half electronic machinery half traditional boom boom instruments, now there's a girl on back up vocals that could convince anyone this is the only music she's heard all her life, and with that amazing rolling beat put out by their drummer and the barrage of riffs, notes and tight vocal harmonies provided by the rest you find yourself totally immersed in what must be the most accessible and immediate sounds ever produced by the experimental edge of the pop world. Devo can go back to the biology lab and Cabaret Voltaire to the art history classes.