The Sisters Of Mercy

First And Last And Always
Merciful Release / WEA, 1985

"So dark all over Europe." The first line of The Sisters Of Mercy's masterpiece First And Last And Always comes in this booming rock-star voice belonging to Andrew Eldritch. The album would go on to fulfil its own prophecy and inspire countless goth poseurs across the continent – but in those first words there's no sense of pretension. They sound like the reaction of someone who looked up at the sky and saw the sun blocked out by a mushroom cloud. "Run around in the radiation/ Run around in the acid rain..."

When the band formed in Leeds in 1980 they were caught in the nexus between post-punk and goth rock, a new genre being carved out by fellow English group Bauhaus with singles like the brilliant 'Bela Lugosi's Dead'. Even though The Sisters used a drum machine, they had well and truly chosen goth rock by the time of their debut First And Last... The songs were romantic and majestic, if a little apocalyptic at times – and, of course, at least one track was sung in a mixture of English and German vocals.

One of my friends can't listen to this album anymore, because it's so closely connected with one of her old lovers. But those kind of memories seem to be what the record was made for. It's so passionate and sentimental that you can't help but listen to the seven-minute finale – where Eldritch croons "you're beautiful" over and over – without picturing some malcontent teenage girl or boy, lying in their bedroom, falling in love with misery.

After their debut album, the band disintegrated around singer Eldritch. Guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams left in somewhat acrimonious circumstances to form their own band The Mission, who continued down the goth rock path while Eldritch made increasingly electronic albums under the original name The Sisters Of Mercy. The later albums by both bands are okay, but they always felt like two halves of a whole – as if the groups were two complementary lovers separated by insurmountable differences. As it turned out, First And Last And Always was exactly what its name said. How truly romantic and tragic.