Sisters of Mercy - Classic or Dud

it doesn't sound like the previous 2 albums, so I can get why someone who loved those would be disappointed. Vision Thing definitely had the ... i don't know what to call it but a lot of albums had it in the late 80s aesthetic ... like it's definitely "of its time"

Definitely of its time, but it still *sounds* great. The problem is that the songs are not really there (Doctor Jeep, Detonation Bd) or not as great as Andy seems to think they are (More). Still, Ribbons and I Was Wrong are classics.

EP-era* > Ribbons > Floodland > FALAA > Rest of Vision Thing

Vision Thing reminds me of the Mission frankly, or the Cult. Too rock and roll for me, not enough goth.

Goth bands get worse and worse is a p good rule of thumb.

at least Go Away White wasn't some butt rock album

turning and turning in a widening gyre
the cape dancer cannot hear the drum machine
goth falls apart; the center cannot hold
mere guitar wankery is loosed upon the world
Wayne Hussey is newly sober, touring everywhere
Pulled over in a Subaru in Glendale
The Murph gets a conviction, while the worst
do remixes for Cleopatra Records

"25 whores in the room next door
25 floors and I need more"

Cringe from the very beginning

Shouldn’t there be a new record by now? Eldritch claimed he’d make one if Trump got elected.

I think he's proud enough of the catalog that he wouldn't want to fuck it up by making a new record. He's a smart enough guy to know the only way to make a new SoM record would be to figure out how to express the same sort of mood using more current sounds; to just fire up Doktor Avalanche and put the bass through the Boss chorus etc would sound pretty sad, there are hosts of nostalgic goth acts doing decent enough versions of that sound. But anything but "this sounds just like the Sisters of Mercy" would cause much of the old guard to wail and gnash its teeth. The omen of Chinese Democracy looms large for the geezers

Lasy time I saw them, Eldritch was wearing a white ice hockey jersey, he does not seem to care much what old goths think, and he’s clearly a lot more self-aware of his strengths and weaknesses than Axl.

yeah and half of his setlists is made up of unrecorded "new" material. I think he just feels there's no financial incentive to go and make a record (when the tours apparently are enough to make a living)

I read an interview where he said he was never convinced that a song was completely finished. In the 80s the limitations in resources and tools meant he'd eventually put out something that was just good enough even though he wasn't completely satisfied.

Modern sound production means he can fuck around with new songs forever without releasing them and he intends to do just that.

Lasy time I saw them, Eldritch was wearing a white ice hockey jersey, he does not seem to care much what old goths think, and he’s clearly a lot more self-aware of his strengths and weaknesses than Axl.

true true.

yeah and half of his setlists is made up of unrecorded "new" material. I think he just feels there's no financial incentive to go and make a record (when the tours apparently are enough to make a living)

yeah but your quotes around "new" are otm - I went to setlist.fm and had a look at the '17 tour -- there was "Arms," and "Summer," and "Crash and Burn" - and none of these are really new, some have been kicking around since '97. I'd bet a dollar he's not really writing stuff except maybe as a lark now and again. I do bring my own baggage to the table here because it's difficult for me to understand people who don't wanna finish their stuff, even though I know a couple of people like that, but it's utterly mystifying to me. I mean everybody knows that work is never finished, just abandoned, but still.

I guess it's procrastination yeah - I mean even a fullblown fiasco like Chinese Democracy can't be that much of a deterrent, Guns 'n Roses are still raking it in with their tours, it hasn't damaged their reputation at all.

Agreed. Pretty hard to fathom how one could "give up" like that on the most tangible aspect of an artistic career. But then again I suspect the main reasons are prosaically linked to business issues (eg paranoid distrust of labels, complications on songwriting credits for sacked band members). Shame cuz what I heard of the "new" songs seemed better than the stuff on Vision Thing.
Also a shame that Eldritch, like Robert Smith, the proud luddite that he is, can't see the possibilities of independent digital music distribution.

look, he does: their "upcoming gigs" page is some lyrics, digitally distributed http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/news/livenews.shtml

their t-shirt game is on point, anyway

INCOMING
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, October 15, 2018 12:30 AM

It's my ambition to post this with the news of a new album before anyone else catches it. I will surely lose this contest.

Floodland> Vision Thing > First Last > Some Girls.

I understand some disappointment but I think Vision Thing is awesome. "Something Fast" is one of their best songs. "Ribbons" is great too but there's not a song I don't like on it.

man that is madness.

Some Girls contains the following songs:

Temple of Love
Alice
Floorshow
Heartland
Body Electric
Lights

culling just my faves from it to assert that neither Floodland, nor Vision Thing, nor FALAA have that many songs of such high quality. Like, FALAA may have 6 real good songs and a couple great ones but six as good as those six? nah man

There are a few great songs on Some Girls but sorry to say I found it a chore sometimes, despite being stylistically closer to things I normally like than the 2nd and 3rd studio albums.

Maybe they should just release a compilation of the newer songs in their live performances but given that Eldritch was afraid of being tied down to definitive versions, those probably would become the definitive versions.

Does blow my mind that much of Floodland was recorded in Stockport.

xxpost OTM

getting into the sisters of mercy at the late age of 33

You'll never catch up with the onslaught of new product.

lol

one thing i've discovered is that i think i enjoy the eps and the albums on completely different wavelengths. which is why it's easy for me to say that floodland registered pretty immediately as a favorite even though when you hold it up against the reptile house ep, floodland seems to cower before its rotted shroud

my fave sisters tracks so far are "on the wire" and "bury me deep"

I absolutely adored Floodland and "Ribbons" but my obsession with this band didn't crystalize until I heard "Alice" and their cover of "Gimme Shelter"

my fave sisters tracks so far are "on the wire" and "bury me deep"

So many great Sisters B-sides. "Afterhours" is another B-side fave.

The EPs and First and Last and Always are the best for me. Floodland is good but uneven and Vision Thing is... ehhh.

Maybe it's because I heard the albums (and specifically Floodland) first, but the EPs have always sounded really thin and low-budget to me, almost like demos. I don't enjoy them at all.

but the EPs have always sounded really thin and low-budget to me, almost like demos. I don't enjoy them at all.

that's because there were very cheaply recorded.

there are 2 excellent articles on tQ re the early days of the band that Ned linked to upthread.

I LOVE that thin-ness / low budget aspect. Reptile House's almost zero production just slays me.

The very best song is a b-side because it is, of course, Adrenochrome.

Adrenochrome just keeps getting better with age.

Those tQ articles are being turned into a book on Unbound (due September) and Trevor Ristow's book on the period up to the RAH show (Waiting For Another War) is an absolute blast.

It's that bit in Adrenochrome where it sounds like Keith Levene has turned up, slashed at his guitar for a couple of bars, then realised he's in the wrong room and leaves again while Marty Thau is leaving the knobs well alone because they got set at some point so they're still probably right.

It's the 'huh' tossed in after "freedom".

I LOVE that thin-ness / low budget aspect. Reptile House's almost zero production just slays me.

Same. Plus the songs are just better imo.

I LOVE that thin-ness / low budget aspect. Reptile House's almost zero production just slays me.

Nah. This is a band that was always striving for grandiosity. Working with Steinman was really the only choice. Bob Ezrin as a close #2.

It's Eldritch at his greatest, because he hasn't yet become Von.

I love this song so much. I remember when you had to buy They Shall Not Pass, the CNT compilation, to get hold of it (which wasn't that much of a hardship since it had other good stuff on it including Pink Headed Bug) and then the low quality Body Electric bootlegs. I remember when I finally found an affordable copy - might have been as late as 86? - and even then it was SIXTY FUCKING POUNDS.

Nah, i'm afraid you are wrong. Eldritch might have beeen striving for that but Sisters Of Mercy mk 1 and 2 revelled in their lo fi delight. Early Sisters was way more than just Eldritch's vision.

x post

brad i'm so proud

First time i saw them, Gary Marx was the star of the show. Eldtitch was second fiddle.

I remember when you had to buy They Shall Not Pass, the CNT compilation, to get hold of it

that is how i had it for many years. still never managed to get the 7".

Yeah, to a very large degree they're Gary Marx's band until he moves out of Leeds then they become Andrew's band.

clearly this band is an absolute classic entry into the whole 'i prefer their earlier stuff' cliche.
personally, i prefer the massive bombastic stuff as opposed to the lo-fi recordings, but thats cos i love a big widescreen production.
that said, you cant deny the brilliance of some of the earlier material.

i love both (up to and including floodland) but very much think of them as two distinct bands.