I was recently at Utrecht's Tivoli concert hall to see one of my favorite 80's bands, The Sisters Of Mercy. I refer to them as an 80's band although they've been active for nearly 40 years, because they released their last LP way back in 1990. They've been touring the world playing their Goth Rock classics ever since, without bothering recording another album. Sometimes I wonder if anybody would object to, say, The Rolling Stones doing the same. To be honest, the concert didn't live up to my expectations: Singer Andrew Eldritch still caries that characteristic bass voice, but the live sound didn't do him any favors so he came over as suffering from a throat infection. The electronic beat and light show made it look like being in a techno festival, which I didn't mind at all, but the two guitarists didn't add that necessary something: The one (I learned later that his name is Ben Christo, with SoM since '06) played a few good melodic parts. The other (Dylan Smith, new member) basically just posed and played riffs. The SoM riffs can be simple yet effective, but in the concert they lacked volume - by which I don't mean loudness but fullness. These songs that sounded huge played on the speakers of the rock clubs of my youth should kick ass live. Certainly the venue's sound betrayed them, but I think the guitarists are also not up to the task - not only was their playing pretty basic, they failed to harmonize correctly as backing vocalists. I unfortunately didn't get the sense that this tour was something more than a hastily thrown together moneymaking routine for Eldritch. That said, I did have a good time, and so did thousands of other spectators greeting every song with an enthusiasm I rarely see nowadays. Truth be told, The Sisters' songbook does constitue the Goth Rock Bible. Bands from Rammstein to Paradise Lost to Fields Of The Nephilim owe them a lot.
I don't know if the enthusiasm of those 40-something fans was fueled by the songs or by the throwback to the good-old-days of the 80's and 90's. Because those
were certainly good times, even if they aren't often refered to as such. At least in Athens where I grew up there was a vibrant (rock) club scene, live concerts, and lots of great new music coming out. My first acquaintance with the SoM was around 1987-'88, and back then
this was the album to get. As far as I knew, it was their most famous LP. Little did I know it was a bootleg release, and much less that it was limited to Greece. These early recordings were initially scattered between various singles and EP's, to get them on import would cost a fortune. So a nice Greek bootlegger with the mysterious name
Black Swan Records included the best of them in one LP and put it out on the market.
Someone had to do it. The Sisters only came round to it circa 1992, when they released their early output as the
Some Girls Wander By Mistake CD. But until then,
this was the indispensable companion of every Greek Goth. Here the band doesn't deal in metallic riffs like they would towards the end of the 80's, but Ben Gunn and Gary Marx play some sharp post punk guitar and a few nice melodic solos. Craig Adams' propulsive bass adds buzz, but it's the synthetic part of the rhythm section that dominates the beat department: SoM's drum machine
Doktor Avalanche may well be the most famous
non-human rock musician. Despite seeing various incarnations through the years, the doctor is the only "consistent" member of the band - save for its programmer and singer Andrew Eldritch. Eldritch's deep bass-baritone voice is one of the most recognizable in rock: imagine that of Leonard Cohen stripped of its particular elegance and warmth and wrapped in the icy atmosphere of Joy Division with a hint of Christopher Lee gravitas. The band
were certainly Cohen fans: the borrowed their name from one of his songs, while the title of their album
Some girls wander by mistake ("...into the mess that scalpels make") is a line from another Cohen song from the same record.
The earliest tracks here (the "Body Electric/Adenochrome" and "Anaconda" singles) are pretty much in the post punk vein: The bass and atmosphere are reminiscent of Joy Division, guitars of The Sound, and the vocals are very deep and theatrical. Their first EP contained the rousing rocker "Alice" with its spidery guitar, and the mutant disco of "Floorshow", both featuring more animated vocals betraying an Iggy & The Stooges influence. "Burn" and "Lights" from 2nd EP
The Reptile House are quite different: slow and dark, they justify the Gothic label that followed the band. Eldritch sounds here like Nosferatu singing from the inside of his coffin. The (chronologically) last tracks come from the
Temple Of Love EP. The eponymous song became their biggest hit when they revisited it ten years later, but the infectious guitar intro and operatic chorus was already present in this original version. "Heartland" is mid-tempo song with a catchy chorus, and "Gimme Shelter" an imposing cover of The Stones' masterpiece. Quite different really, the original was more soulful when this is slower, starker, and more sombre. Subsequent SoM albums would favor a richer sound with female backing vocals and harder guitars, while the music here is relatively underproduced, bleaker and more electronic. The sound quality of the vinyl is not bad, given that the bootlegger's source was most certainly his own vinyls rather than the original master tapes. More importantly, it really has the feel of a
bona fide complete LP: the duration is right, there is a uniform production style which is rare for compilations, there is a good balance between fast and slow songs, and between side one and side two. Sure, the official
Some Girls...CD is better sounding and longer with a more complete tracklisting, but it
doesn't gel as well. To me,
Enter The Sisters will always be The Sister Of Mercy's first, and
best, album.
this blogger has posted a download link. Just click on the blue letters:
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