11. The Sisters of MercyFirst And Last And Always
I apologise for repeating myself, but this was also a revelation, and an album like it hadn’t existed before. I saw The Sisters Of Mercy together with Martin Ain from Celtic Frost in Zurich in April 1985 on the tour for this album. It was the loudest concert I’ve ever heard in my life. It was so loud you had to leave the hall periodically because it was so painful. But at the same time we witnessed something that we had never witnessed before. When we stood there and we saw ‘Marian’ and ‘Black Planet’ and ‘First And Last And Always’ live, with that heaviness, that darkness, that volume, it was amazing. We both shared a passion for new wave, and that album is in this list as a representative of new wave as an influence on Celtic Frost. I had also listened to all the early EPs and they were a lot more underground than their later work and that’s exactly what I like. It’s almost black metal, it’s so underground. You listen to this music and you’d think it was contrived in a damp, mildewed, spider-webbed cellar and that’s probably exactly what it was – but that’s what makes it different. I’ve seen them numerous times in the meantime. I’ve seen Andrew Eldritch in an ice hockey shirt onstage, and I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt, but nothing will reach the level of these very early concerts when they were still a band and when they played the music that actually made them famous.
