British singer Nik Wade ("Nik Fiend"), synth player Christine Wade ("Mrs. Fiend"), and a variety of supporting Fiends were supplying the world with gothic punk long before "goth" was a catch-all phrase. Alien Sex Fiend played their first gigs at London's famed Batcave club in the early 1980s, as part of the same London scene that included Sex Gang Children and Specimen. Much of the band's groundbreaking sound and style has become the paint-by-numbers template for subsequent macabre groups: ghoulish make-up, all-black clothing, morbid lyrical themes, and--most importantly--a heavy industrial sound that is as danceable as it is noisy. As of 2007, the band, in its 25th year, was still going strong.