The Television Of Cruelty presents... the renaissance of the rock concept album. In style, "Dead Sea Shanties" varies - according to song and mood - from polemical New Wave to pastoral Symphonic Rock. The CD package features a 12-page, full-colour booklet containing the stories, lyrics and stunning original artwork. The album brings the idea of musical narrative into the modern era. It consists of two separate stories united by common themes of youthful idealism and sacrifice. The first part of the album is constructed like the soundtrack to a fictional film, "The Dead Sea Shanties". In this very British movie, Goths Billy and Hannah endure lives of boredom and frustration in a Yorkshire seaside town until the time comes for their tragic parting. The second story, "The Nettlemen", was created in homage to the concept albums of the 1970s. In this magical-realistic tale, a disaffected public schoolboy takes out his anger on the banks of nettles that grow in the woods near his school, imagining them to be a vast enemy army. On leaving school, he joins the International Brigades fighting fascism in 1930s Spain, where fantasy and reality begin to blur...