The band employed the rhythm section of Andy Newmark (drums) and Alan Spenner (bass guitar)[1] both of whom had recently recorded and toured with Roxy Music at the time.

In a 1995 article, music journalist Simon Reynolds listed Beauty Stab among "the great career-sabotage LPs in pop history".

Smash Hits reviewer Dave Rimmer wrote: "Depending on how you look at it, the self-produced "Beauty Stab" is either a radical mixture of styles or a complete and utter mess, but no way is it another classy pop collection like "The Lexicon of Love"" and deemed the album "an awkward-sounding and not enterily enjoyable experience.

"[4] According to Bob Stanley of The Guardian, Beauty Stab was a drastic departure from The Lexicon of Love, and was "their attempt to take on the preconceptions of their fanbase": "The strings were gone, replaced by some tough guitars that sounded weirdly dated – sometimes like Low-era Bowie, sometimes closer to Led Zeppelin.

Although noting that "most of its songs are as politically informed as a can of hair spray", he felt that "Beauty Stab is touching, the sound of young men with too much money and too facile a talent for one-liners getting back at the philistines who dismissed them as nancy boys.