Day 0594 - Floodland

Sisters of Mercy "Floodland" (1987)

The Sisters bring Gothic glower... and a choir.

After their first album, a couple of members left the band.  Remaining member Andrew Eldritch then enlisted the help of Patricia Morrison (from the Gun Club) on bass and vocals, producer Jim Steinman (of Meatloaf fame) and a drum machine called Doktor Avalanche.  Together they created a relatively cold, brooding, but surprisingly 'to the point' goth-rock album.

Day 0461 - Seventeen Seconds

The Cure "Seventeen Seconds"

The Cure are another band that I was primarily familiar with through a few singles... that I wasn't overly keen on; but this is a pretty fantastic album. Aside from the odd wailing, dramatic vocal this is a pretty low-key affair with jangling but mostly unobtrusive guitar. There are odd spots of keyboards but they're used sparingly and in such a way that they add to the music without drawing attention to themselves. In fact everyone here seems to be just doing good work to serve the songs.

I can definitely hear the influence of this band on artists like early REM, a lot of 00s indie rockers, and even the early demos of the Smashing Pumpkins bear a startling resemblance to this collection of songs.