Terrorvision

Alongside New Model Army and Bradford’s thriving bhangra community, Terrorvision stood as the Yorkshire city’s leading musical export. Their status as local heroes gained extra weight once they scored a U.K. number one single in 1999. Having dropped the name Spoilt Bratz in 1991, the group—christened after a cult B-movie—coalesced around vocalist Tony Wright, guitarist Mark Yates, bassist Leigh Marklew, and drummer Shutty. A lone demo proved persuasive enough for EMI Records to sign them and grant the band its own subsidiary, Total Vegas.

Subsequent releases blended melodic pop hooks with heavier guitar riffs reminiscent of a more abrasive Cheap Trick. Formaldehyde appeared in 1992, followed by How to Make Friends and Influence People in 1994 and Regular Urban Survivors in 1996. These albums generated several chart entries, among them “New Policy One,” “Pretend Best Friend,” the standout “Alice, What’s the Matter?,” and “Perseverance.” The last of those reached the U.K. Top Five and signaled widening mainstream traction. That trajectory was reinforced by 1998’s Shaving Peaches, an exuberant blend of eccentric pop and driving rock that carried a certain naive appeal some likened to the Ramones.

Even though the accompanying single “Tequila” reached the top of the charts, EMI parted ways with Terrorvision before the century closed. The band’s own imprint nevertheless secured a distribution arrangement with Papillon in May 2000. A sixth appearance on the Never Mind the Buzzcocks Christmas special came soon after, and the group re-entered the studio the following year. Their fifth album, Good to Go, arrived in February 2001 and yielded the hit “D’Ya Wanna Go Faster?” After a series of spring dates, the quartet ended their 13-year run by disbanding in June. A modest farewell tour of the U.K. was planned for the autumn to accompany the September release of the retrospective collection Whales & Dolphins.

Terrorvision later regrouped for occasional live performances between 2005 and 2009. In 2011 Tony Wright revealed plans for a new album, Super Delux, slated for release that same year. The band stayed largely out of sight until resurfacing for a U.K. tour with Thunder in 2016 and another alongside Reef and the Wildhearts in 2017. Returning to the studio in the early 2020s, they completed their seventh album, We Are Not Robots, issued in 2024.