A friend of this reviewer once described this album as “Joy Division if they’d grown up in the desert,” and in a way that really does capture the impact of Savage Republic’s debut effort. Tragic Figures wasn’t just a striking album in its own right but, in the same way that Peter Saville’s designs for Factory Records captured something further, Savage Republic’s cofounder Bruce Licher’s own style that would inform all of Independent Project Records’ releases made its own vivid mark in turn, featuring images of executions from post-Islamic Revolution Iran on chipboard. But the key of course remains the music, and there is indeed deeply intense percussive and bass-driven energy not dissimilar from the famed Manchester foursome, as on the snaky “Ivory Coast.” But they were their own beast, vocals delivered in higher pitches of extremity and guitar parts feeling descended from Dick Dale’s Arabic surf shredding. Song titles like “Attempted Coup: Madagascar” and “Zulu Zulu” add to the sense of intercepted foreign reporting, but having a straightforward one like “Kill the Fascists!” has the gift of simple clarity.