BAUHAUS - In The Flat Field Vinyl LP (1980)

There is before In The Flat Field and there is after it. Bauhaus didn't invent gothic rock so much as drag it fully formed out of some damp Northampton rehearsal room in 1980 and hand it to the world looking exactly like this.

Peter Murphy's vocals, Daniel Ash's angular guitar work, the rhythm section locked into something tribal and claustrophobic, this is the blueprint. Every band that ever played in the dark owes something here. Sisters of Mercy, The Cult, Siouxsie, Nick Cave's entire aesthetic, they all heard this and made choices. It's not an easy listen in the way a pop record is easy, it asks something of you, it rewards the kind of person who considers that a selling point. If you're building a gothic record collection from scratch, you do not pass go, you do not collect two hundred dollars, you buy this first.

Vinyl LP reissue of the 1980 original. Full length album. UK.

Fans of: Siouxsie And The Banshees, Joy Division, The Sisters Of Mercy