The Mark Of Cain

The Lords Of Summer
Phantom, 1988

Joy Division have been so successfully canonised this decade that it's hard to imagine anyone possessing enough balls to challenge or tamper with their legacy. There are now umpteen books, films and essays detailing the rise and fall of Ian Curtis, as well as a range of products plastered with the cover art from Unknown Pleasures, from shirts and posters to sushi boxes and sneakers. Last week I read a review that ever so gently criticised the release of yet another "best of" compilation, but backed up by saying that any of the band's songs on any record had to be a good thing – not once, or twice, but three times in as many paragraphs. Talk about walking on fucking eggshells!

Of course, I'm probably as guilty as the next person of buying into the story of Joy Division As Untouchably Brilliant Artistes, or at least I have been in the past, so when I heard The Mark Of Cain's first single 'The Lords Of Summer' - a reimagining of sorts of the British post-punk band's 'Dead Souls', released just a few years after the original - I was mortified. How dare some dudes from Adelaide rip off Ian Curtis so blatantly, I hollered (though at the time they recorded it, circa 1988, it may not have been so controversial). It took me a full year or so to pull my head out of my arse and give it another spin.

I actually now enjoy that song more than 'Dead Souls', and not just because The Mark Of Cain are Australian and I've been banging on about the virtues of local music so much lately. For one thing, I like it simply because it couldn't possibly be recorded today, for fear of offending pretty much everyone who owns a record player. The other reason is because once you get over its initial wrongness, the idea of Ian Curtis being reincarnated as the frontman of a suburban heavy metal band from Adelaide is actually pretty cool. The Mark Of Cain went on to hone their own sound and become widely respected, but I like 'The Lords Of Summer' more than most of their later work, which is generally too loud for me. You can find it on the Tales From The Australian Underground record or the reissue of their debut album Battlesick.