Crime & the City Solution, 10 December 2024

Crime & the City Solution are an Australian rock band formed in late 1977 by singer-songwriter and mainstay Simon Bonney. They disbanded in 1979 leaving only bootleg recordings and demos. In late 1983, Bonney travelled to London and in 1985 he formed a new version of the group in the U.K. which included members of the recently disbanded The Birthday Party; later they transferred to Berlin, where they issued four albums – Room of Lights (1986), Shine (1988), The Bride Ship (1989) and Paradise Discotheque (1990) – before disbanding again in 1991. In 2012 Bonney reformed the band in Detroit with two veterans of its Berlin era and a handful of new members.

Critic David Sheridan described the band's music as characterized by slow tempos, dark moods and Bonney's forlorn vocals, all of which can range from "endurance testing" at worst to "hauntingly beautiful" at best.