Crime & the City Solution are an Australian rock band formed in late 1977 by singer-songwriter and mainstay Simon Bonney.

In late 1983, Bonney moved to London and in 1985 he formed a new version of the group which included members of the recently disbanded The Birthday Party.

[1] They eventually settled in West-Berlin and issued four albums – Room of Lights (1986), Shine (1988), The Bride Ship (1989) and Paradise Discotheque (1990) – before disbanding again in 1991.

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.

[3] According to Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, The Particles had "a cult following around the inner-city Sydney scene courtesy of its delightful, melodious pop sound".

[5] In contrast, according to Peter Nelson of Pulp fanzine, Crime & the City Solution, used "An exciting blend of fuzzed monotone guitar runs and squawking saxophone riffs .

[3] After this release, Epic Soundtracks (aka Kevin Godfrey, ex-Swell Maps) joined on drums which freed Harvey to concentrate on keyboards and guitar.

[1] With the line-up of Adams, Bonney, Harvey, Rowland and Harry Howard, and Soundtracks, Crime & the City Solution recorded its debut album, Room of Lights, produced by the band, Flood and Tony Cohen.

[3] On 25 April that year Crime & the City Solution issued their second album, Shine, which Allmusic's Ned Raggett felt was "a touch less classically smooth and arranged, more rough around the edges and jagged, especially with Bonney's delivery ... his lyrics come across as distinctly unfriendly to a usual verse/chorus structure, sounding like a spoken-word recitation sung a line at a time".

[10] In November Craig Lee described their performance at Bogart's for the Los Angeles Times, "For what is purportedly a loosely structured outfit, this group displayed a remarkable cohesiveness.

[12] On 17 April 1989 Crime & the City Solution released their third album, The Bride Ship, for which Raggett found them "continue carving its own strange path.