I’m not sure how I first got introduced to the Sisters. I have a memory that it might have been the video for Doctor Jeep on Bevis and Butthead but I can’t be sure. (I just found the video on youtube and it was! Impressive work from a brain that can’t remember what happened yesterday.) I’m not sure what about it grabbed my attention as B+B slagged the band off but they became an act I was interested in checking out. Then my Vampire the Masquerade phase started and the Sisters’ lyrics were all over the book, so I took the jump and bought Vision Thing. I loved it. Ribbons is one of my favourite songs but the shine wore off VT over the years. That left First and Last and Always or Floodland to pick for this post and it was a tough choice. I almost picked First, it has amazing songs and some of my favourite lyrics of all time (“The devil may care but I don’t mind” will always be a favourite) but it was always going to be Floodland, wasn’t it?
Floodland opens big with Dominion / Mother Russia. The crashing drums come pounding in and Doktor Avalanche, the Sister’s infamous drummer, stamps his mark on the album straight out the gate. This is a towering song, positively sky scraping, nothing you’d heard sounds like this. It sounds so perfect, like it sprung from the mind of Zeus, fully formed. I mean, I truly hate the saxophone, of all the instruments it is the most wretched, but without it? Dominion wouldn’t have half of its swagger.
Then, after all that excitement, the album comes crashing to a halt with the hookless dirge that is Flood. But somehow it doesn’t derail the album. Somehow this works. Coasting on drum machines and vibes, Flood slows things down as the album takes a breath and launches into Lucretia My Reflection. Lucreita is one of the greatest songs of all time, it’s pretty much the perfect goth song. The slight knowing sneer in the vocal, the pulsing bass, the rock god pose. This song knows how good it is and it knows you know that too. However, this Corrosion is an instant skip these days. I’m afraid that’s just too much cheese for me. I know that complaining about a song co-written by Jim Steinman being cheesy is a redundant criticism but, as much as I might have liked this song in the 90’s, it’s not for me anymore. But! Saying that, if I don’t skip it in the first 30 seconds I’m going to sing along and throw some pretty dramatic shapes. Sometimes, there is no escape from the cheese.
The rest of side two (again, showing my age) slows down a lot and moves from bangers to mood building, and Driven like the Snow has become one of the album highlights for me over the years. That insistent drumbeat and Eldritch’s flawless vocals lift what might be a dull song in lesser hands.
The lines
“I don’t go there now, but I hear they sung their
“Fuck me and marry me young”
Some wild idea and a big white bed
Now, you know better than that, I said”
Will always raise a smile from me.
So many people have tried to copy this album and they all failed. This record is lightning in a bottle, and even Eldritch himself couldn’t top this ridiculous unicorn of an album. Floodland is what peak goth looks like, and in true goth fashion, it would glass you for calling it goth. This is a cantankerous album, made by a very grumpy man, who very well may be taking the piss out of how ridiculous his music is, but is trapped by the fact that most of his fans haven’t noticed.
God bless the Sisters, the world is a better place for them being in it.
https://lynkify.in/song/lucretia-my-reflection-2018-remaster/aETAMD3a
Bevis + Butthead
The ways of exile 