In the Valley, heavy usually means Angus Young's guitar at the beginning of "Thunderstruck," Glenn Danzig warning mothers not to send children his way or Lars Ulrich shredding drum skins throughout And Justice for All. Heavy is metal and metal has always been very big around my home turf. So, when I heard Sisters of Mercy for the first time, right after I started working on my beginner's collection of less popular music, I was struck by a heaviness that was, to me, alien. There was a drum machine, Doktor Avalanche (who now doubles as an advice columnist), offerring a cold, diabolical rhythm. There were few, if any, guitar solos. Then there was Andrew Eldritch, who didn't scream as much as he roared a menacing "Fuck me and marry me young."
Vision Thing was the first Sisters of Mercy album I purchased, but Floodland became the favorite. The cover of the album probably says more about its content than any review ever did-- black sky meeting with an oily sea, a full moon set between the faces of Eldritch and Patricia Morrison. It's an album filled with lengthy pieces. It's major single, "This Corrosion," comes in at just under eleven minutes and five others top the six-minute mark. The production is, overall, sparse, but there are bits of song (the gospel backing vocals on "This Corrosion" and the rainstorm effects on "Flood II") that seem to stretch for a big 1980s moment but, fortunately, miss that overproduced sound.
Floodland is the album that spawned the pseudo-goth nickname bestowed upon me by my closest friend. It is the album that helped me convince my metal-loving college roommate to start going to Helter Skelter with Kar3n and I. It is the album that just might make you want to see the band play in Los Angeles next month.
I would like to see Sisters of Mercy again, but, undoubtedly, I will be stuck doing something far less interesting that night. I had my chance to see the band in 1998. I went with a group of ten people in the worst rainstorm of the year. It took an extra two hours for everyone to arrive at my place and at least another hour to get from the LAX area to Hollywood. We stopped at Del Taco for dinner, where one member of our party was propositioned by a trannie while standing in line for the bathroom. We parked four blocks away and I tripped in a puddle, managing to rip my tights and bang my knee before the show. Given that this was the Palladium, who has the worst door policy in town, our matches, lighters, cigarettes, gum and pen were all confiscated. The guard tried to take my key ring and nearly ripped a fashion chain off my handbag because she thought they might be "weapons." I threw a fit and she caved. It was an incredibly fucked up night, to say the least, but Sisters of Mercy are worth that.