Bitches Sin from Cumbria, formed in the early months of 1980, are one of the more well-known acts of the legendary N.W.O.B.H.M. movement. After a well-received debut 7" single for Neat Records in 1981 (entitled ?Always Ready?), they switched to Paul Birch's Heavy Metal Records label and released the rather disappointing ?Predator? longplayer one year later. A further 12" EP called ?No More Chances? (Q.T. Records) appeared in 1983, followed by their second and last album ?Invaders? in 1988 (published in the US by King Classic and G.I. Records in the UK). By the end of the 1980's Bitches Sin were already history. However, brothers Ian and Pete Toomey went on to form Flashpoint, the indirect follow-up to Bitches Sin, albeit musically a lot more melodic. The demo ?Twelve Pounds And No Kinks? (recorded in 1980) marked Bitches Sin's first ever visit to a recording studio of any type. The seven tracks of this cassette make up the lion's share of ?The First Temptation?. Guitarist and Bitches Sin founder Ian Toomey explains: "This was all the songs that we had at the time because the band had only been together a few weeks but we were prolific writers and it wasn't long before we had an album's worth of our own songs. It was not an 'official' release but copies were made available to fanzines and fans who wanted a copy. We would run off a few copies at a time and mail them out, only charging for postage and packaging. We did not produce a large number of copies." The last four songs on ?The First Temptation? are taken from a BBC session, that Ian remembers vividly: "It was extremely hot in the studio but a great experience, and my abiding memories are of a control room that seemed to stretch into infinity and Pete and I stripped to waist blasting out our solos while more and more people came into the control room to watch us play. It was a fantastic session!" Some of the songs present in demo form on ?The First Temptation? have later surfaced on official Bitches Sin album releases. ?The First Temptation? will almost certainly boost Bitches Sin's status even further. Maybe whetting the fans' appetite for additional demo collections from the band, as one thing is certain, there is still a lot of undiscovered material in Ian Toomey's vaults: "I have not considered this at all and I am aware that there are various songs on tape that have never been available. Its an interesting thought and maybe when time allows I'll track them all down and look at it more seriously as a project to make them available as a one-off release."
