Because the chairman says so

I really admire Andrew Eldritch. Why? Well, he confounds me, he irritates me and he is profoundly cool. He is the lead singer of a popular beat combo known as The Sisters of Mercy. This band was Very Big in the 1980s, but has mostly carved out a unique career progression since then. The band has just finished a 60 date tour of the US and Europe, and has achieved pretty impressive attendance figures around the world for these gigs. That’s not that big a deal though – I mean, bigger better known bands do that all the time. Well, the neat thing here is that Eldritch’s band hasn’t released an album since 1991. That’s 15 years, without product to shift or record company promotion to back the band up.

Not only that, but the modern incarnation of The Sisters is made up of Eldritch, two hired on guitarists and a drum machine called Dr Avalanche that also plays bass. It’s the greatest rock and roll swindle since the last one.

So far this probably sounds like any other nostalgia led 1980’s revival act, but here’s the thing, more than 50 per cent of what ‘the band’ actually plays at its gigs are new unreleased tracks. Vast numbers of the attendants don’t know the music because they have never heard it.

How does he sell out gigs and headline massive rock festivals on the continent? Clearly there are large numbers of seriously devoted fans out there, and Eldrtich has them eating out of the palm of his hand. He doesn’t do interviews, doesn’t talk between songs – except to chant THIS WAR IS WRONG – doesn’t release music, doesn’t update the band’s website and treats the fans with utter disdain. And we love it. And we want more.

Why? Well, firstly this man drips cool. He’s clever and his lyrics are fabulous.

“Her lovers queued up in the hallway
I heard them scratching at the door
I tried to tell her
about Marx and Engels, God and angels
I don't really know what for
but she looked good in ribbons
so just walk on in
she looked good in ribbons
so just walk on in”

Ribbons, Vision Thing, 1991

“Looking out the morning I can see the trees, turn orange in the rays
don't need the smell of incense, in the morning haze
head on down the delta, in the shadow of the sun
seven shades of shiva rising, I am come

wah-hoo
let's do the war on drugs”

War on Drugs, unreleased, 1997

“where the sky meet the ground
where the street fold round
where the voice you hold don't make no sound, look
snow on the river and two by two
took a lot to live a lot like you
I don't go there now but I hear they sung their
fuck me and marry me young
some wild idea and a big white bed
now you know better than that, I said
like a voice in the wind blow little crystals down
like brittle things will break before they turn
like lipstick on my cigarette
and the ice get harder overhead
like think it twice but never never learn
and the mist will wrap around us
and the crystal, if you touch it ...”

Driven like the snow, Floodland, 1987



Gabba Gabba Hey!