It’s a huge week in Indie Basement, reviews-wise, so let’s get into it. This week I listen to new records by John Cale, Irish rap trio Kneecap, John Grant, Kelley Stoltz, Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP), Sam Morton (actress Samantha Morton and XL Records head Richard Russell), Ought offshoot Cola, Swiftumz, Russian Baths, IDM vet µ-Ziq, Metronomy drummer Anna Prior, and more.

Over in Notable Releases, another dozen or so albums are reviewed including The Decemberists, MONO, This is Lorelei, Julie Christmas, Ulcerate, and more.

In other news, BrooklyVegan just released the third issue of our digital magazine where you can read interviews with Jessica Pratt and Beak>, a look back on The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin for its 25 anniversary, my TV column, reviews and more. It’s free to subscribe.

Head below for this week’s dozen reviews…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Kelley Stoltz – La Fleur (Dandy Boy / Agitated)
Album #18 from San Francisco’s DIY pop king is another winner

Regular readers of Indie Basement know I’m a huge fan of San Francisco legend Kelley Stoltz who is one of the most consistently terrific and underrated songwriters and performers of the last 25 years. La Fleur is his 18th album and shows no signs of him slowing down, running out of songs, or losing his touch. Like on 2022’s The Stylist, Kelley’s pulling from all sectors of his sphere of influences, including ’60s psych-pop, ’80s post-punk and new wave, British Invasion and Britpop, spiritual jazz and more. As usual, he also plays nearly every instrument himself, though Jason Faulkner (Jellyfish, Beck) contributes guitar to “Make Believer” and the supremely jangly highlight, “Awake in a Dream.” Kelley’s never lacked in the tunes department but on La Fleur his lyrical acumen feels especially sharp, if occasionally tinged with dread. “If every present tense were were as tense as this,” he sings on album opener “Human Events,” surveying the state of things, “You gotta see yourself out.” Other highlights: “Reni’s Car” has Kelley driving around Manchester in the drummer from The Stone Roses’ car (true story, apparently); spacey, arm-waving anthem “About Time”; and “Awake in a Dream” which is a clear homage to his favorite band, Echo & The Bunnymen (who he actually played in for a few years). No matter what sonic alley he’s taking a side trip down, Kelley always sounds like he’s enjoying himself, which in turn makes it a blast for us.

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Swiftumz – Simply the Best (Empty Cellar)
First album since 2015 from cult legend Chris McVicker features great songs and guest appearances from Kelley Stoltz and more

While on the subject of San Francisco cult legends, Christopher McVicker has been a part of the Bay Area scene since the late ’90s. He’s contributed to albums by Gravy Train!!!! and Hunx & His Punx and has been making charming indiepop earworms under the name Swiftumz since the early 2010s. Simply the Best is his first Swiftumz album in nearly a decade and features contributions from Kelley Stoltz, along with members of The Aislers Set, The Bananas and more. The album’s title comes from the process of making the album — apparently he wrote dozens and dozens and dozens of songs and chose the very cream of the crop. I don’t know what didn’t make the cut, but these 10 songs are all hits, full of jangly guitars, “bah bah” choruses, glammy twin lead guitar riffs, and nods to his heroes, and all recorded with ramshackle charm. I have a feeling his rejects are still pretty awesome and I for one would happily purchase Simply The Second Best.

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John Grant – The Art of the Lie (Bella Union)
Sixth album from John Grant brings more overt ’80s influences — and anger at the state of things — into his glammy spacerock world

John Grant came of age in the ’80s and he’s surrounded himself with the sounds of his youth on his excellent sixth album. Working with producer Ivor Guest (Grace Jones, Bomb the Bass, Lana Del Rey) and a band of ace session musicians, Grant takes Fairlight synth orchestra hits, 808 drum machines, fretless bass and other recognizable sounds of the Reagan era (plus a love of classic 4AD, which would technically be Thatcher era) and folds them into his unique style where grandiose ’70s pop is at its core. The Art of the Lie is both luxuriant and angry, a record about “the lies people espouse and the brokenness it breeds and how we are warped and deformed by these lies.” Clearly this has been brewing for some time. “I lost my patience several decades ago,” he sings over a Cameo-style funk beat on “All This School for Nothing,” the album’s opening track. When exactly? “Around the time I was in utero.” Grant targets the world’s hypocrites in charge, though Christian Right seems to be Enemy No. 1. Appropriately, he takes them down with empathy, humor, melody, and lots of flash and even more vocoder, but very little preaching. Few do it like John Grant.

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John Cale – POPtical Illusion (DoubleSix/Domino)
The Velvet Underground co-founder’s still got it. May we all make something this good at age 82

Now in his 80s, Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale is not slowing down. If anything, he’s speeding up. Coming just 16 months after 2023’s great MERCY, he’s already back with another album. Where that one was thick with notable collaborators (Weyes Blood, Panda Bear & Avey Tare, Sylvan Esso, Fat White Family), POPtical Illusion was made entirely by Cale with assistance from longtime producer Nita Scott. They’re not wildly different albums, either, but this one plays a little more pure and may be all the more impressive as you’re not straining to hear the what all these guests are bringing to the table. Cale has no trouble on his own, as his talents as a songwriter are still bearing fruit with words poetic, melodies memorable and production that is very modern yet stays within his world. Songs like “Davies and Wales,” “Edge of Reason,” “Shark-Shark” and “How We See The Light” have the wisdom of an artist who’s been a creative force since the ’50s and still has the ability to captivate now.

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Kneecap – Fine Art (Heavenly)
Irish rap trio, who may soon be movie stars, shine on their defiant, hedonistic debut album

Belfast rap trio Kneecap burst onto the scene in 2017 with their debut single “C.E.A.R.T.A” which all but cemented their whole vibe and outlook; defiantly Northern Irish, rapping in their country’s dying tongue, brazenly anti-authoritarian, wickedly smart, and with a mile-wide wild hedonistic streak. Then came a few more great singles, the pandemic, and a wildly entertaining, soon-to-be-released origin story biopic where Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí star as themselves alongside Michael Fassbender, and now Kneecap are finally releasing their debut album. Fine Art doesn’t rest on Kneecap’s laurels to date and doesn’t include “C.E.A.R.T.A,” “H.O.O.D” or “Get Your Brits Out” but instead is a loose concept album set around one day at a fictional Belfast pub called The Rutz. Patrons include Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten who turns out to be a pretty good rapper on “Better Way to Live,” and Lankum’s Radie Peat who sings the traditional Irish intro to “C3AG” which opens the album. Produced by Toddla T, the beats draw mainly from the ’90s — from both classic boom-bap but also rave/electronica (“I bhFiacha Linne” [“In Our Debt”] samples 808 State’s “Cubik”) — which makes it friendly enough to pass the language barrier for those who give it a shot. That said, Americans and other English speakers might not take to Kneecap at first, though seeing the movie — which is part Eight Mile, part 24 Hour Party People and part Trainspotting, but Irish — will probably make you a convert like it did me.

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Sam Morton – Daffodils & Dirt (XL)
Actress Samantha Morton and XL Records founder Richard Russell have made an album that’s no vanity project and worth sinking your teeth into

The list of actors who have dipped a toe into the pool of pop and rock is long and weird, and includes multiple cast members of the original ’60s Star Trek, Scarlett Johansson,  David Duchovny, Ryan Gosling (long before “I’m Ken”), Joe Pesci, Juliette Lewis, Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, Kevin Bacon…it goes on. Most of these records are forgettable, vanity project curios but occasionally there is a gem amongst the stones. One of those is Daffodils & Dirt by Sam Morton, aka the duo of Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton and XL Records founder Richard Russell. The collaboration came about after Russell heard Morton on an episode of BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” and discovered they shared a lot of the same musical tastes. They traded a few emails which led to them making music. Part of the album’s success is due to Morton who has been in some big films, like Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, but she’s more drawn to artier works, like Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar or Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. She’s also appeared in a few music videos over the years, like The Horror’s “Sheena is a Parasite.” Mostly though it’s the chemistry between Morton and Russell who clearly spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of music they wanted to make. Daffodils & Dirt is not a stab at the Top 40 or an album of standards, but a forward-thinking, idiosyncratic work that has many layers to sink your teeth into. They’ve also brought in disparate cast of collaborators including Alabaster DePlume and UB40’s Ali Campbell (his band’s early, stridently political song “Burden Shame” was on Morton’s Desert Island Discs list). There is dub, jazz, glitchy beats, spoken word, crate-digger samples, and Morton’s wonderful, ethereal voice woven throughout. If this makes you think of a particular ’90s genre, well, there may be a reason Sam Morton is playing Massive Attack’s climate change benefit in Bristol in August. Maybe I shouldn’t even have mentioned who these two are. The perfect cover art, featuring a photograph by Nick Waplington of Nottingham’s Broxtowe Estate in the ’80s which was when Morton grew up there, says more about the album than her IMDB page. There is very little vanity here.

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Mike Lindsay – supershapes vol 1 (Moshi Moshi)
The Tunng and LUMP creative turns his eye to the mundane on his rewarding solo debut 

You may know Mike Lindsay from Tunng or LUMP (his duo with Laura Marling), but he’s now making music under his own name. As the “vol 1” in the title hints at, this is the first in his planned “supershapes” series that shines a light on “the miraculous in the mundane.” Specifically on this album, “everyday domestic objects, especially tables, coffee table books, and the daily rituals that shape us, heavily focusing on the majestic in the domestic.” Those things also include, as heard on album opener “lie down,” “putting on the kettle, taking out the rubbish, eating all the biscuits…feel a little sluggish,” at which point the title comes into play as an exclamation. Lindsay does a good job of making the mundane musically appealing, thanks to another quirky artist, Anna B Savage, who sings throughout, and to the really wonderful, warm woodwind arrangements by Ross Blake. The album also features contributions from The Smile collaborator Robert Stillman, and drummer Adam Betts (JARV IS). There’s plenty of Lindsay’s signature bleeps and bloops, too. supershapes vol 1 may at first seem like a novelty but it will soon grow on you. And I can say with firsthand knowledge it makes a great soundtrack to doing the dishes or making dinner. “It’s hard to be excited about the benefits of a cucumber,” a voice says at one point on the album, but supershapes vol 1 is doing its best to change that opinion.

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Been Stellar – Scream From New York, NY (Dirty Hit)
Angsty debut album from this young NYC band

New York City doesn’t have as much grit as it did in the ’70s or ’80s or even the ’00s, with real estate prices rising as high as the condos that litter both sides of the East River, but young band Been Stellar are aiming to put a little back in. Their debut album Scream from New York, NY is a howl of an indie rock record, wearing its scrapes and bruises proudly and sounding like it was made in the dark alley equivalent of a studio. (In actuality, they made it with in-demand producer Dan Carey who’s worked with Wet Leg, Hot Chip, black midi, and many more.) There’s real lip-bloodied snarl on songs like “Start Again,” “Can’t Look Away” and the album’s title track. (I have compared them to ’90s/’00s NYC band Calla in the past but Iceage might be more apt/relevant.) The songs stick with you, too. This city may not be the same, but Been Stellar’s music fondly recalls the days when things were cheaper and scarier.

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Russian Baths – Mirror (Good Eye)
Second album from this Brooklyn group mixes dissonant rock with baroque elements

If you like your gritty NYC indie rock grittier, darker, artier and alien, Russian Baths’ second album should be your cup of sooty tea. This group are descended from the same dissonant-yet-carefully-constructed lineage as Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead (they have probably even heard of Calla) and vascilitate from menace to allure, noise to beauty. Mirror is their first album since their 2019 debut, Deepfake, and they’ve added more space this time. At first blush, these 11 songs seem minimally arranged, but there are many layers of atmosphere in the background, the push-pull dynamic of singer-guitarists Jess Rees and Luke Koz is more finessed, and when they let things get loud, it’s more of a jolt to the system than if they’d let things rip straight from the start. That’s not to say this is a loud-quiet-loud record; hooky as they are, “Furnace,” “Purgatory,” and “Always Night” are just not those kind of songs. Russian Baths surely own a few distortion pedals, but Mirror makes you wonder if “existential dread” pedals exist.

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Cola – The Gloss (Fire Talk)
Second album from this Montreal trio would’ve sounded at home on NYC’s Lower East Side in 1978

Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy’s former band Ought got compared to Talking Heads frequently; their current group, Cola, left those comparisons behind but they still sound more like a band from New York 1978 than Montreal 2024. That’s not really a criticism. Along with drummer Evan Cartwright they’ve crafted a minimal, jagged style that owes a lot to Television and early Feelies. A little Strokes too? Well, at least the same influences but these three are artier than Casablancas and co, rarely jumping to the obvious next chord, even when sometimes you wish they had. But what they do really works. Cola’s second album is the sound of three musicians who know each other well, know their way around a hook, and know how to make room for each other instrumentally. That last point is the key and difficult to pull off in execution, but The Gloss makes it all seem easy.

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µ-Ziq – Grush (Planet Mu)
Mike Paradinas’ IDM alter ego still sounds like you (may) remember, and that’s just fine

Some artists are so unique, with such a signature style and sound, you’re ok with them never really changing as long as they continue to work on a regular basis. Aphex Twin falls into that category and so does Mike Paradinas whose first two µ-Ziq albums were released via Aphex Twin’s Rephlex Records and who has continued in much the same fashion for the last 30 years. The 2020s have been an especially prolific time for Paradinas; Grush is his fourth µ-Ziq album of this decade and like the three that preceded it, it hits all the ’90s IDM nostalgia receptors. But nobody else makes music quite like this, putting ambient, techno, jungle and drill-and-bass into a blender for a unique sliced up breakbeat cocktail. (I just used a hoary music critic cliche, but in this case µ-Ziq actually sounds like a blender at times). This album was honed at live gigs, with Paradinas seeing what crowds did or didn’t respond to, with his touring partner and visuals creator Jan Moravec providing additional support/feedback. As such, Grush aims to replicate the flow of a live gig with all the highs, lows and flights of fancy. It hits most of those notes, along with all of Paradinas’ usual bag of sonic tricks in a satisfying way, though it is not a seamless one-hour mix like you might expect or want. Grush is, however, another welcome addition in the discography of one of the most distinctive electronic talents of the last three decades.

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Anna Prior – Almost Love (House Anxiety)
Metronomy drummer gets into deep house on her debut solo EP

Since 2011, Anna Prior has kept the beat in Metronomy and has been one of the keys to them becoming one of the best live bands, dance rock or otherwise, of the last decade. The group are on pause at the moment and Prior has taken the opportunity explore her own musical path which reflects her growing obsession with dance music and nightlife culture, as well as her desire to be a part of it without all the indulgences that are usually associated with it. These seven songs are much more purely dance music than Metronomy have been in years, maybe ever, with a few killer deep house bangers, including “Up2U,” “Fall Back” and “Tech Não.” She says Almost Love became “a sort of love letter to myself, a way of shoving emotions into musical boxes and finally letting some things go.” Some of these things she might do well to hold onto and bring with her when Metronomy eventually reconvene.

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Classic Goth’s 13 Greatest Albums

Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry – Talk About the Weather

Like Sisters of Mercy, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry hailed from Leeds, England and, early on, cribbed from Joy Division, with singer/guitarist Chris Reed sounding eerily like Ian Curtis at times -- though more often there was more ferocity than fragility in his growl. (Their records may beg otherwise but, for what it's worth, the band say their primary influence was MC5.) By the time of their 1985 debut album, Talk About the Weather, the Lorries had figured out their own variant within the genre and had become good songwriters, too. A lot of RLYL's best-ever songs are here, including the anthemic, Wire-eque "Hand on Heart" and the driving, danceable single "Hollow Eyes." With a mix of rhythm boxes and live drums, the scrappy mid-'80s indie production on Talk About the Weather has held up remarkably well, with songs like the punky, rigid "Happy," and the strutting title track which sounds rough, tough and dour, without ever laying it on too thick.

The Chameleons – The Script of the Bridge

While generally not lumped in with the early-'80s goth scene -- like Killing Joke they leaned more "post-punk" -- Manchester's The Chameleons have all the earmarks of the sound: Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding's delay-soaked guitars, that could be both driving and dreamy, John Lever's massive drums, and the foreboding bass and melodrama-drenched voice of frontman Mark Burgess. No matter what genre you put them in, their debut album, The Script of the Bridge, is fantastic. The Chameleons didn't sing about vampires, but Burgess painted a paranoid world where the walls were constantly closing in and "I must've died a thousand times, feeling less than human in God's eyes." Burgess' empathy, and Smithies and Fielding's inventive, interwoven guitar playing, make Script of the Bridge a marvel still today.

Off the Bone

Many groups projected a dark image, but The Cramps' Lux Interior seemed like the kind of person you would not want to encounter in a dark alley, and his band's music -- bare bones rockabilly -- was a party that always seemed seconds away from turning into a fight with broken liquor bottles, or perhaps the undead. It was mostly in good, campy fun, though, with Lux, guitarist Poison Ivy and the rest of the band (that included Kid "Congo" Powers for many years) spinning tales of the radioactive wasteland of the '50s nuclear family, fueled by late night TV and b-grade monster movies. Off the Bone, a UK compilation of the band's best stuff to date that was released while they were still in their early prime, has pretty much everything you need by The Cramps, including early classic "Human Fly," the lusty horror of "Goo Goo Muck," covers of "Fever" and "Surfin Bird," and hedonist anthem "New Kind of Kick." Bonus points: Off The Bone's amazing movie-poster-style cover art illustration is done in old-school 3-D, and original copies came with those red and green glasses needed to make it come alive.

Virgin Prunes – If I Die, I Die

Featuring not one, not two, but three very eccentric, flamboyant frontmen with voices to match -- not to mention The Edge's brother, Dik, on guitar -- Dublin's Virgin Prunes were genuine weirdos whose music was hard to pigeonhole but dipped often enough into the macabre to fit right in at the Batcave alongside Specimen and Sex Gang Children. Gavin Friday and Guggi were the main vocalists, sounding a bit like a new wave Smeagol and Gollum, with Dave-iD Busaras rounding out the trio of voices. (As teenagers, Friday and Guggi co founded an arty gang in Dublin called the Lypton Village with Bono; all members, like Dave-iD, were given new names that reflected their "true character.") Live shows were theatrical and confrontational -- to the point of getting them banned from a few clubs -- and the Prunes were known for high-concept releases like their "A New Form of Beauty" series which laid out their M.O. that being different was beautiful. In that respect Virgin Prunes were very beautiful indeed, as is their 1982 debut which was produced by Wire's Colin Newman. Ranging from mascara-smeared mutant disco ("Baby Turns Blue," "Pagan Lovesong"), to pretty pop ("Ballad of the Man") and creepy mood pieces ("Decline and Fall," "Theme for a Thought"), If I Die, I Die is a terrific, one-of a kind record for those willing to take the leap.

Dead Can Dance – Spleen and Ideal

While Dead Can Dance's music has become known for its sweeping, globe-trotting influences, the band began life in Australia as a more standard fare goth group, albeit one with two powerful singers: Lisa Gerrard, capable of vocal acrobatics and glossolalia (4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell said she used her voice "like a weapon"); and Brendan Perry whose melodramatic baritone could give Scott Walker a run for his money. It's what makes their 1984 self-titled debut gripping, even as they were still finding their sound (and dealing with hastily recorded, tinny production). It's their next album, though, where Dead Can Dance blossom into the group we know today, one who sounds like it belongs in a 300-year-old cathedral and not a grimy rock club. In fact, Spleen & Ideal's opening three tracks sound like church (a very ancient, ornate one), but from there the album opens up wide, incorporating '60s and '70s soundtrack music, grandiose strings (that furthered comparisons to Walker), and baroque arrangements and influences from around the world. You can still hear their post-punk origins in songs like "Advent" and "Avatar," but Dead Can Dance were now writing the kind of grandiose compositions other groups used as walk-on music.

This Mortal Coil – It’ll End in Tears

This Mortal Coil was the passion project of Ivo Watts-Russell, the founder of 4AD Records, where, with help from studio wiz John Fryer, he could take some of his favorite songs and turn them into spare, lush midnight music. Ivo couldn't play an instrument, but he knew what he wanted things to sound like. “It worked between us because we were both depressed motherfuckers at the time," said Fryer in 4AD biography Facing the Other Way. "He trusted me in the studio." TMC's first single remains their defining moment, an unforgettable cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" featuring Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie. To follow it up, Ivo called on most of his label's roster, including members of Dead Can Dance, The Wolfgang Press, Xmal Deutschland, and more. The result was It'll End in Tears, which blends Ivo's ear for covers with evocative nighttime instrumentals. "Song to the Siren" is here and Fraser also sings lead on a string quartet version of Roy Harper's "Another Day." There's also two knockout Big Star covers: " Kangaroo," featuring Magazine's Howard Devoto (and an incredible arrangement by Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde), and "Holocaust" sung by Cindytalk's Gordon Sharp. The album also features 4AD's other most famous voice, Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard, who sings on three songs. A rocking cover of Colin Newman's "Not Me" breaks the mood a little, but It'll End in Tears is still prime comedown music for those who like it dark.

Cocteau Twins – Treasure

When Cocteau Twins released their 1982 debut album, Garlands, there were flashes of the ethereal band they would become, but at that point they were basically better-than-most Banshees clones with a talented guitarist and promising lead singer. They improved by leaps and bounds on 1983's Head Over Heels, with Elizabeth Fraser flexing her vocal muscles and Robin Guthrie spinning delicate webs of guitar on "Sugar Hiccup." But it was Treasure, their first album as a trio with multi instrumentalist Simon Raymonde, where Cocteau Twins became the otherworldly group fans obsess over still. A truly gorgeous album, Treasure sounded like nothing else at the time, with Fraser's multi-octave range spiraling skyward, intertwined with Guthrie's celestial fretwork. Brian Eno was actually approached to produce but -- according to 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell -- told the band, "I’m really flattered that you’ve asked, but I’d never have had the courage to use the size of reverb that you used on Head Over Heels!” and suggested they do it themselves. Which they did with fantastic results. Though their sound had mutated, Cocteau Twins were also still very, very goth, from the mix of synthy chimes and swirling acoustics of "Ivo" to the ornate melodrama of "Beatrix," the crashing, thunderous drum machines and jagged guitar and slithering bass of "Persephone" and "Cicely," and the choral ice palace of "Donimo." You also cannot discount the visual aspect of the Cocteaus, from Vaughn Oliver's iconic Treasure artwork (which adorned the walls of many a teenage goth's bedroom in the '80s), to their coifs that were as meticulously crafted as their music. Treasure is as much a world of lace and candles as Stevie Nicks was inhabiting at the time, just not one where Tom Petty might show up.

Bauhaus – Mask

In many ways, it's hard to get much more goth than Bauhaus, a four-piece from Northampton, UK whose introduction to the world was a 10-minute creep-out named after the actor who played Dracula that featured skeleton-like frontman Peter Murphy bellowing "I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm dead!" Bauhaus were a very talented band that pulled from a variety of sources, from glam (they all loved Bowie) to dub reggae, disco, and the many groups who'd just sprung up in the nascent post-punk scene. Though people at the time mostly focused on Murphy's "dark lord" presence, Bauhaus also featured the songwriting talents of bassist David J and guitarist/saxophonist Daniel Ash, while David's brother, Kevin Haskins, was a subtle beast behind the drumkit. Having left 4AD after their striking 1980 debut, In the Flat Field, Bauhaus released their second album, Mask, in 1981 via Beggars Banquet. While it may not contain anything as iconic as "Bela Lugosi's Dead" or "Dark Entries," Mask is an improvement over In the Flat Field across-the-board, with better songs, better production and arrangements, and more varied material. The album rips open with the pounding, urgent "Hair of the Dog" and songs like the breathless "Passion of Lovers," funky "Kick in the Eye" and skronky disco number "In Fear of Fear" are classics, as are the ferocious "Dancing" and "The Man with X-Ray Eyes." Mask's greatest quality may be that, as heavy as it can be, it's also fun, with welcome flashes of wry humor (mostly from David J) -- a quality that most of their dead-serious contemporaries lacked.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Tender Prey

"Unfortunately all the worst sides of my output in my creative life seem to have been adopted by people as the most influential ones," Nick Cave told NME writer Jack Barron back in 1988, shortly before the release of Tender Prey, speaking of his influence on the goth rock scene. "I'd hate to go down in history as the No 1 goth, the man who spawned a thousand goth bands with stacked hairstyles, no personality, pale sick people." As far as pale sick people went, Cave's late-'70s/early-'80s band The Birthday Party were arguably the sickest of them all (and plenty pale even without corpse paint), bringing a genuine intensity -- and palpable threat of violence -- to their live shows and, to a lesser extent, their records. Going solo with the Bad Seeds, Cave dialed back the fury and noise, opting instead for a more suave and sophisticated musical approach while still exploring his favorite themes -- love, sex, death, religion -- with the fire and brimstone fervor of a man on the brink. With a Murderers' Row lineup of the Bad Seeds, including Kid "Congo" Powers, Einstersturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey, Roland Wolf, and Thomas Wylder, Cave delivered his greatest record to date. Tender Prey opens with "The Mercy Seat," which remains one of The Bad Seeds' signature songs, sung from the point of view of a man awaiting execution on the electric chair, and is as riveting as it gets. And the album keeps delivering, be it groovy garage rock rock ("Oh Deanna"), lush '60s orch pop ("Slowly Goes the Night"), or spaghetti western ballads ("Mercy"). Death was at the heart of nearly every song, and with Cave's distinctive baritone wail, Tender Prey is as gothic as it gets, even if in his case, the bats had long left the belfry.

The Cure – Faith

Picking one album by The Cure for this list is difficult, as there are at least three from the '80s that are contenders. If you want them wallowing in despair, it's Pornography. If you still want them wallowing but with lots of hits, it's Disintegration. But 1981's Faith is where Robert Smith fully embraced the moping as a stylistic choice, while still retaining a little spring in his step -- and the more minimal sound -- that they sported on their first two albums. Things might've turned out differently, though. "The initial demos that we did in my mom and dad’s dining room are really quite upbeat," Robert Smith told Rolling Stone. But then, the whole band had a close death in the family. "Within about two weeks, the whole mood of the band had completely changed. I wrote 'The Funeral Party' and 'All Cats Are Grey” in one night, and that really set the tone for the album." Memorable, drowned basslines lead more songs than not (see "Other Voices," "Holy Hour," the title track) and work in tandem with tom-heavy drum patterns. Guitars spin delicate threadwork, glacial synthesizers spread permafrost, and brittle echo covers everything. Despite a couple relatively upbeat tracks, Robert Smith seems resigned to his mood, as is evident just from song titles like "The Funeral Party," "The Drowning Man" and, what's one of the best, most Cure-like titles ever, "All Cats Are Grey." Faith is a mood, but Smith and company haven't completely shut all the curtains just yet.

Joy Division – Closer

So much of what we know as classic "goth" was born out of Joy Division's sound that it's both difficult to overestimate the band's significance and, for some, to understand their significance, as Ian Curtis' tortured vocals, Peter Hook's basslines, Stephen Morris' tom-heavy drumming and Bernard Sumner's wiry guitars have been imitated endlessly since. (See nearly every band on this list in some way or another.) But where some of the other artists to follow in their footsteps appropriated their style because they liked the way it sounded and looked, Joy Division were the real deal. Closer was the group's defining, final statement, released two months after the suicide of Curtis. (The cover art, featuring a tombstone from an Italian cemetery, was in production before his death.) "This is the way, step inside," our guide Curtis sings on the album's opening song, "Atrocity Exhibition," letting us into a dark world that is all rolling drums, moody bass, and guitars that sound nearly as industrial as the factory machines producer Martin Hannett mixed in. That tone stayed throughout the album: "Isolation," with its icy synthesizers and rapid-fire bass; the metallic, heavy "Colony"; the death disco of "A Means to An End"; the sleek, sexy "Heart and Soul"; and the somber closing tracks "The Eternal" and "Decades." The mood is bleak and unrelenting, though Martin Hannett may have hit on the best description, at least for this list's purposes: "dancing music with Gothic overtones."

Siouxsie & the Banshees – Juju

Siouxsie & The Banshees' 1980 album, Kaleidoscope, was their first to feature both drummer Budgie and former Magazine guitarist John McGeoch, but it was their next album that took full advantage of the new lineup's alchemy. Spinning off the highs of Kaleidoscope singles "Happy House" and "Christine" (and 1980 standalone single "Israel"), the Banshees pushed the highs even higher for what is their best album, mixing dark, mysterious world influences into their signature sound that has proved highly influential on countless bands, whether the Banshees liked it or not. McGeoch, whose inventive playing is across-the-board fantastic here, was quoted in the liner notes for the 2006 reissue of Juju that it was “simply not true” that the Banshees were goth. “It simplifies things too much to give it a label like that. We were more thriller than horror movie, more Hitchcockian blood-dripping-on-a-daisy than putting fangs in something.” The band protest too much, especially on a record involving voodoo, witches and a song titled "Halloween," not to mention the general creepy atmosphere of inky classics like "Spellbound," "Arabian Nights," "Night Shift," and Siouxsie's next-level vocal performance on "Head Cut." But like most great albums, Juju transcends genre, even if its sound was mimicked by dozens of inferior bands.

The Sisters of Mercy – Floodland

If Joy Division unwittingly helped create goth, and the closing of Batcave signaled the end, then Sisters of Mercy welded the lid shut with the over-the-top late-'80s widescreen glory that is 1987's Floodland. When members Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams left the group to form The Mission (UK), Andrew Eldritch and erstwhile drum machine Doktor Avalanche initially renamed themselves Sisterhood but soon refashioned Sisters of Mercy with former Bags/Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison to make their defining statement. (Morrison, who would later join The Damned, doesn't actually play on the album, but her face looks out across the water on the album cover, and her style added much to the videos from this record.) At the center of the album is the truly epic "This Corrosion" which was produced by Jim Steinman -- who wrote and produced Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell albums (and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and more) -- which is so ridiculous (the 40-piece choir) it tips fully into genius. It's not even the best song; that would be "Lucretia My Reflection" with its killer bassline, ferociously whispered vocals and mix of power chords, synths and thundering drums. There's also opener "Dominion" / "Mother Russia," the crawling, synthy "Flood 1," the windswept acoustics of "Flood II," and sullen torch song "1959." In a genre that is rarely subtle, Eldritch swings for the fences and connects right down to the clever/stupid line for a home run. Turn it up loud, let the Floodland wash over you and sing "This Corrosion" with him.