Dead Or Alive - It's Been Hours Now (Black Eyes)

With his long, straggly multi-coloured hair, thick eye make-up and flowing clothes, Pete Burns, the lead singer of this Liverpool five-piece, has always looked a bit silly to me - like a would-be Steve Strange type who didn't quite make it. It came as some surprise, then, to find this tale of a gloomy sexual encounter eerily effective and genuinely disturbing. Two of the other songs on this four-track EP don't do much, but the fourth, another version of "Hours", is even more spine-chilling than the main one. Recommended. (Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, April 1, 1982)