Following a classic early 1980s début album that was universally adored and bought by millions around the world ("The Lexicon Of Love") was never going to be easy for anybody, least of all Martin Fry, Mark White and Stephen Singleton who make up Sheffield's finest pop alchemists ABC. But then ABC were no mugs. In all probability, they fully expected the critics and pop punters alike to eagerly await a helping of more of the same when 1983 started rapidly drawing to a close. Their relatively long silence after their fourth single lifted from their first album (the lushly symphonic showstopper "All Of My Heart") was scant preparation for what was eventually to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public in the form of taster single "That Was Then But This Is Now" - a much harder, early 70s Roxy Music-influenced pop/rock stomper which virtually blasted away all of the ornate trimmings of their last magnum opus and heralded a new phase of the band: one that was obviously now looking forward and not back. Mere weeks later, ABC's second album "Beauty Stab" appeared with noticeably less promotional bluster than that which greeted its predecessor. The sumptuous lovelorn decadence of the previous ABC incarnation was now supplanted with a more world-weary, politically-conscious model, and Martin Fry laid bare his new manifesto: social commentary with a musical edge to match. Out then went the lush string arrangements from Anne Dudley and synthetics from Trevor Horn's widescreen producti