Today it’s exactly 34 years ago that The Sister of Mercy released their first studio album First and Last and Always. It was released on 11 March 1985 through Merciful Release and WEA, with Elektra Records handling the US release.

The album was recorded during the second half of 1984 and multiple recording sessions took place in various recording studios. It was mixed and produced by David M.Allen who also produced for the likes of The Cure, Depeche mode, Wire and The Human League.

Less then a month later, on 1 April, lead guitarist and band co-founder Gary Marx played his last concert with The Sisters of Mercy before deciding to leave the band. Later Eldritch would suggest the song ‘Walk Away’ was directed at Marx.

Although Wayne Hussey and Gary Marx wrote and sang some of the initial lyrics for some of the demo tracks, Eldritch eventually wrote all the final lyrics as they would appear on the finished album. Both Wayne and Marx re-used some of those lyrics later for their own projects The Mission and Ghost Dance.

Two (demo) songs that didn’t make the album, Serpents Kiss and Wake, would later be re-recorded and released by The Mission.

To represent Dr. Avalanche, The Sisters Of Mercy’s nickname for their drum machine, an Oberheim DMX drum machine was acquired for the recording of this album.

The album went silver (with 60,000 sold) in the UK on 30 October 1987 and gold (with 100,000 sold) on 8 May 1989. Its highest position in the UK album charts was no. 14. In Germany, the group's second largest market after the UK, the album went gold (with 250,000 sold) in 2011. Its highest position in the German album charts was no. 40.

Nevertheless, the production of the album left the band initially in enormous debt. According to Andrew Eldritch, the album recouped the production costs only by 1988.

First Last And Alway - Track listing

2006 CD re-issue Bonus Tracks

The Sisters Of Mercy - Personnel

• Andrew Eldritch – vocals, sleeve design, mixing
• Craig Adams – bass guitar
• Wayne Hussey – guitar, vocals
• Gary Marx – guitar
• Doktor Avalanche (drum machine) – drums

DISCOGS

Industrial/Rock band 51 PEG are pleased to announce the release of their new album AVOID. This is their first release after a 14 year hiatus.

After garnering a following in the Mid-Atlantic region in the mid-2000's and sharing the stage with acts such as 30 Seconds to Mars, Orgy, and The Birthday Massacre, the band is back with a 16-track offering that builds on their unique blend of the alt rock, goth, prog, and industrial genres.

51 Peg formed in 1998, with the release of their first album "Strange Appointments" coming in 2000 which drew comparisons to a varied group of artists like Peter Murphy, Depeche Mode, and Orgy. The follow-up album "Esc Ctrl" featured a more focused and polished sound, and pushed the band forward in popularity. The group went on an indefinite hiatus in 2007 but was offered a reunion show in 2016 which proved to be successful.

Building on that momentum and with the combined experience gathered over the years in other projects, the band decided to write their most ambitious material yet. Listen to the latest evolution of the band’s sound at 51peg.com.

For more information:

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Check out the video for "NOCTRL" BELOW!

www.facebook.com/51peg

Today it’s exactly 34 years ago that The Klinik (at that time called Absolute Controled Clinical Maniacs) performed at Xenon (10.03.1985, Aarschot, Belgium). Two tracks, Sick In Your Mind and Vietnam which were recorded during this live show, appeared later that same year on the first The Klinik album Sabotage.
After this release The Klinik soon made a name for themselves with their cold and harsh EBM sound and their live shows, where they performed with their heads wrapped in gauze, wearing long black leather coats.
Even today, Sabotage is still considered as one of the most influential electro-industrial-EBM albums and became a must have collector item.

Sabotage (Tracklist)

Cinematic Metal/Industrial band TERRORBYTE has released the official music video for their single, "Worldstar," off of their upcoming full length album, CRIMEWAVE.

"'WORLDSTAR' -- the first single off our new upcoming full length CRIMEWAVE is meant to be a big middle finger to all the people and circumstances in our lives who didn't believe in us and tried to tear us down. 'Worldstar' is an Emmure-meets-Linkin Park-meets-Slipknot nu-metal anthem for all the underdogs up against the odds, or anyone out there who is fighting to survive or make their dream come true." - TERRORBYTE

TERRORBYTE IS A MALEVOLENT, GESTALT CONSCIOUSNESS; THE EMBODIMENT OF NEGATIVE ENERGY, HOUSED IN A SENTIENT CONSTRUCT.

www.facebook.com/terrorbyteband

Poly Styrene was the dynamo that drove a punk-rock strike of defiance, loaded with anti-capitalist views, all spewed from this unlikely young girl. Only nineteen at the time of recording-‘Oh Bondage Up Yours’, but this respectable, well-mannered young girl with braces on her teeth-which were a feature when she smiled, she would open her mouth to sing and the shy, quiet Marion Joan Elliot-Said would transform into the high-priestess of a revolution, Poly Styrene.

The story of the late Poly Styrene is as remarkable as the album released in the surge of the punk-rock movement. The music had dominated everything from New York to London across the airwaves and youth Born in London to an Irish mother and an absent Somalian father, Poly left home at 16 and within three- years had formed the band X Ray Spex. The rebel had found a cause.
A single and then an album, to some degree a standout recording of the time, punk bands were not usually associated with saxophone players, but that

GermFree Adolescents opens with a four-syllable disdain: “Ar-ti-fic-ial!”, as it phases the music launches and this Richard Hell in knickers summons up the powerful and depressed emotions of the day in a twelve-track assault. It becomes clear that Poly Styrene delivers conviction in every word she sings, every sneer and roll of the tongue, each phrase is delivered with the same oppressed intensity as the last.

As for the musicianship of X-Ray Spex, they provide the perfect backdrop for Styrene to wage a verbal war, this album contains some of the best drumming on a punk record over which a very loud, old-school guitar pumps distorted rock and roll riffs that build in intensity throughout the albumthe inclusion of a saxophone to give the songs an extra depth may not be not common on records of the ‘Generation-X’ but it works here in galvanizing the sound.

The songs themselves are not love songs as such, they are rather the points of everyday society such as “Warrior In Woolworths”, “Plastic Bag”, “ I Am A Poseur” and of course the title track, not many bands could make songs about personal hygiene and supermarkets cool, though these themes make the album relatable and accessible to the youth of the day and stands as a time-capsule of late 70s culture.

The original 1978 track list:

Side A;

'Art-I-Ficial' – 3:24
'Obsessed with You' – 2:30
'Warrior in Woolworths' – 3:06
'Let's Submerge' – 3:26
'I Can't Do Anything' – 2:58
'Identity' – 2:25

Side B;

'Genetic Engineering' – 2:49
'I Live Off You' – 2:09
'I Am a Poseur' – 2:34
'Germ Free Adolescents' – 3:14
'Plastic Bag' – 4:54
'The Day the World Turned Dayglo' – 2:53

Kevin Burke March 2019