Martyn Bates had grown up in Bedworth, England, in a staunchly Methodist family with "undercurrents of magic", and had listened to folk music from an early age, subsequently being inspired by the first wave of post-punk.

[5] Peter Becker had played in a covers band before buying and experimenting with a Wasp synthesizer (he released a solo cassette-album in June 1980 and a second a year later).

[6] Bates was working as a hospital porter and Becker as a laboratory technician when the two met, having simultaneously been turned down for membership in the Nuneaton band Bron Area.

[18] Becker would later recall that "the music was always constantly changing in style: punk, thrashy, atmospheric, ambient, dense, sparse, folky, poppy and even a tinge of avant-garde.

"[10] The second Eyeless in Gaza album, Caught in Flux was released in September 1981 to some highly positive reviews in the British music press.

1982's Drumming the Beating Heart (released, like the first two albums, on Cherry Red) saw Eyeless in Gaza refining their sound and attracting broader coverage.

In the same year the band recorded The Home Produce/Country Bizarre, a split album with Lol Coxhill released on limited edition cassette via the Tago Mago label.

[citation needed] By the time of the "New Risen" single (released in May 1983) and its parent album Rust Red September (July 1983), Eyeless in Gaza had become concerned that their initial uncompromising stance had "alienated a lot of people" and had begun to make concessions towards a more pop-oriented direction.

[18] More of this new approach was evident on the 1984 EP Sun Bursts In, which brought comparisons to contemporary pop optimist Howard Jones (as well as an unlikely Single of the Week accolade from Joe Leeway of Thompson Twins).

[citation needed] For their 1985 single "Welcome Now" the band employed Aztec Camera's drummer Dave Ruffy: this song would in turn appear on the final album of the band's early years, 1986's Back From the Rains, for which former Sinatras/In Embrace drummer Joby Palmer was recruited, as was Bates' longtime girlfriend Elizabeth S. (who served as backing singer).

[26] With the reunion now firmly established, Eyeless in Gaza returned to their original duo setup for studio recordings (although Elizabeth S. would continue with the band as an occasional associate member) and revived their Ambivalent Scale label for new releases.

The same year saw the release of another full album, Bitter Apples, which blended Eyeless in Gaza's current working methods with elements of their original post-punk recordings.

From this point onwards, Eyeless in Gaza would spend lengthy periods in the studio incubating new recording, although they would occasionally surface for concerts (accompanied by Elizabeth S.) In 2006, they released Summer Salt the first and eponymous volume of the Summer Salt & Subway Sun sessions, part of a "mammoth set of recordings" dealing with the concept of "The City (as) resolutely an outward manifestation of the human psyche".

2010's Answer Song & Dance compilation summarised the past fifteen years of development alongside a number of previously unreleased tracks.

[citation needed] In 2016, both the 2CD compilation Picture the Day: A Career Retrospective 1981–2016 and Eyeless In Gaza's eighteenth album Sun Blues were released to positive reviews.