The Sisters Of Mercy – First And Last And Always

This album on vinyl sounds nothing like the one that is on Spotify! not only the sound quality but also the mix of some songs. Not in a bad way, because this album is very cool. The EPs that came before and with this album are also worth checking out. 😎

Don't worry if you find a scratched copy, recording levels are so high that you will only hear pops between songs.

Light weight vinyl with some production irregularities (some songs seem louder/richer than others) yet it really delivers. The title says it all: this first album is the Sisters at their very best.

Cannot say enough how absolutely awesome this album was, is and will always be. From start to finish it delivers just great music. Emotional, transcending time and space this is a must have for anyone that's into darkwave and gothic. This album reminds me of my youth and I can not say enough how lucky I am to have been able to hear it when it first came out. How many times I played this on late nights with the lights out to set the atmosphere of this album. Just a flat out must have.

I hate to say it, but The Sisters Of Mercy's debut album will always remain their best one to me. It suffers a bit from underproducing, but then, all their other albums suffer from overproducing and the sheer amount of bombast thrown in your face. I love the drumsound on this one, from a today's point of view it has aged like a fine wine. Electronic, yes, low resolution as well and most of the time pretty monotonous, but that's the magic. Here we've got The Sisters stripped down to the bare necessarities and that is mostly rhythm and voice, no big choruses.
It took me a while to get into it as I started out with "A Slight Case Of Overbombing" and playing all the obvious hits to death. I needed some time to discover this masterpiece and to appreciate its raw and pure form, so much that I actually don't like anything they've made afterwards that much anymore. Not that it is bad, quite the contrary, but they never managed to reach this pureness and directness again. Of course, if there was a band today trying to pull that of, with that deep deep voice and those over the top lyrics, you couldn't take it serious. Here it works. I one night that I had turned it on my girlfriend told me, that it sounds like The Sisters. Go figure.