Silhouettes & statues : a gothic revolution 1978-1986

"If you're expecting malnourished, overly serious guys (and it is a predominantly male genre) averse to daylight and joy... that's exactly what you get here. But, as is the norm with Cherry Red compilations, this collection delves way beyond the big bands, which is where the collection becomes a 5CD education in a genre.All the big hitters are here, the aforementioned Sisters and Bauhaus, The Cure, The Mission, Fields Of The Nephilim, Alien Sex Fiend and Southern Death Cult sit comfortably alongside more post punk bands such as Birthday Party, Public Image Ltd and Joy Division, whose classic "Transmission" opens the set - perhaps a way of them telling us this is the first goth track?Away from the better known artists of the genre you'll find a deliciously gloomy pre Primal Scream Bobby Gillespie as part of The Wake, doom-pop from Specimen, bleak hate-rock from 1919, psyched up, and proto acid house electronic experiments from Portion Control with "Fiends". Holding upparticularlywell is "Ghost" by Part 1, which pre-dates the claustrophobic productions of Dan Carey by several decades".

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"Arguably the first multi-disc anthology to cover the goth spectrum in such minute detail, Silhouettes And Statues is lovingly annotated and beautifully presented in a hardback book format. Perhaps its most worthy attribute, however, is that it recognises what a sprawling, hydra-headed beast goth really is. For example, while it rightly focuses on the likes of early 80s Batcave scenesters Specimen and other (actually relatively disparate) sub-genres such as positive punk vanguards Southern Death Cult and UK Decay, Silhouettes also pulls in key tracks from dark Sheffield funksters Hula, synth-wielding cold wavers such as The Legendary Pink Dots and even the avant-garde-inclined drone of PiL's The Flowers Of Romance, revealing the wealth of diversity on offer for pessimism-fuelled alt.pop kids during the early 80s ... As with any such exhaustive enterprise, this box also includes its fair share of duffers and bandwagon jumpers, with pretentious pillocks Fields Of The Nephilimandviolin-led dirge meisters Sunglasses After Dark springing especially readily to mind. Another minor issue is the non-appearance of key outfits The Danse Society, Sex Gang Children and X-Mal Deutschland, though the welcome inclusion of hard-to-source rarities from underrated, short-lived acts Rema Rema, Modern Eon and Dublin experimentalists The Threat ensures that Silhouettes And Statues ultimately makes for a surprisingly joyous celebration of all things dark and deathly".

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