Originally formed in 1977 by Pete Allerhand, Alan Brain and Jeff Starrs in Bath, they added Manny Elias (later of Tears for Fears) on drums and Phil Crowther on bass.

[1] Their debut album, Big Oceans, produced by Colin Thurston, was released in 1978 consisted of both hard-edged power pop ("You Didn't Have to Lie to Me", "Academies to Anger") and more expansive, somber material ("Shipyards") that signaled the direction the band were to take on their second effort.

Peter Gabriel also did a session with the band, producing demo versions of "You Didn't Have to Lie to Me", "That Kind of Boy" and "Shipyards", and these were subsequently released as archive material.

This album has over subsequent years received critical acclaim, however at the time, it was poorly promoted by Virgin and was ignored by radio and the music press.

According to an interview with Jeff Starrs in 1997, "soon after its release we did support dates in the UK with the Pretenders and Peter Gabriel whilst Virgin closely watched the sales graphs in the US climb.