The Best Gothic Rock Albums of the '80s

Merciful Release put it out in March 1985 with David M. Allen producing and an Oberheim DMX credited on the sleeve as Doktor Avalanche. Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams walked out within months of it. Marian is the one Andrew Eldritch claims he wrote in ten minutes, sung partly in German over a bass figure that circles and never lands. Spotify files the band without its definite article.

Self-produced for Beggars Banquet in October 1981, the second Bauhaus album trades graveyard theatrics for something with hips. Kick in the Eye had already appeared as a single that March, elastic bass and saxophone underneath Peter Murphy, and it is where the band stops being anyone's Joy Division comparison. Spotify's edition runs fifteen tracks, appending single sides to the original ten.

Mike Hedges produced for Fiction in April 1981, and the tour that followed carried no support act — audiences got Carnage Visors, a short film by Simon Gallup's brother Ric, with the band's instrumental running behind it. Primary is two basses grinding where a guitar should be. Border case, claimed by post-punk too. Spotify also lists a compilation-tagged Faith; this is the album.

Eldritch made most of it alone, with Patricia Morrison on bass and sleeve and the drum machine still doing the work. Jim Steinman produced two tracks at New York's Power Station and put forty members of the New York Choral Society on them. This Corrosion is eleven minutes of that choir bellowing at a machine, and it reached number seven in Britain.

Polydor, November 1982, produced by the band and the first Banshees record to use real strings instead of synthesisers. Violinists Anne Stephenson and Virginia Hewes saw away at Slowdive while Budgie plays something nearer a tango than a rock beat. Border case: art-pop as much as goth, and their Juju went to the Post-Punk list. Spotify capitalises it A Kiss In The Dreamhouse.

Frontier Records issued it in March 1982 with Thom Wilson producing and Rikk Agnew of the Adolescents on guitar, which is why a nominally gothic record moves like Californian hardcore. Romeo's Distress rides a surf lick under Rozz Williams' sneer. Spotify's edition runs sixteen tracks against the original eleven. Deathrock rather than English goth, flagged as such — the American branch of the family tree starts right here.

Situation Two released the second album in September 1988 and it entered the UK chart at number 12, flour-caked cowboy hats and all. Moonchild opens on Carl McCoy's growl and a guitar line that keeps climbing without ever arriving anywhere. The band produced themselves, which explains the murk, and nobody has matched this particular collision of goth and spaghetti western since.

Hussey and Adams took their half of the Sisters argument to Mercury, recruited Simon Hinkler and drummer Mick Brown, and reached number 14 with this in November 1986. Tim Palmer produced. Wasteland opens the thing on twelve-string chime and a chorus designed for raised arms in a field. Spotify drops the apostrophe and files it as Gods Own Medicine.

4AD, July 1987, and the record splits by voice: Brendan Perry sings the first half, Lisa Gerrard the second. Anywhere Out of the World sets Perry's baritone against timpani and massed strings with hardly a guitar audible. Border case — the label's dreamier wing went to the Dream Pop list, and this one earns its spot on funereal grandeur. Spotify carries only the remaster.

Number four in Britain in October 1985 on Beggars Banquet, and an odd record in that Big Country's Mark Brzezicki drums on most of it while Nigel Preston keeps She Sells Sanctuary. That track is one chorused Billy Duffy figure and an echo unit, which was enough to carry the band out of goth clubs and into arenas. Border case: hard rock is visible from here.

Chris Kimsey, who had engineered and produced Rolling Stones albums, co-produced with the band for EG in February 1985; it reached number 11 in the UK. Love Like Blood puts Jaz Coleman over Geordie Walker's chiming guitar and became a top-20 single goth DJs never retired. Watch the editions: this eight-track one substitutes the extended twelve-inch mix.

Cut in Melbourne with Tony Cohen and finished in London, out on 4AD in July 1982 while bassist Tracy Pew was serving two and a half months for drink-driving; Barry Adamson covered bass on Kiss Me Black. Dead Joe is Rowland S. Howard's guitar scraping against Nick Cave howling about a car wreck. Border case: goth's ugly, unglamorous older cousin.

Ivo Watts-Russell, who ran 4AD, co-produced the Hamburg group's 1983 debut with them, and Anja Huwe sings all of it in German. Qual nails Manuela Rickers' flanged guitar to Wolfgang Ellerbrock's bass and simply refuses to slow down. Four of the five members were women, a detail the British music press of the day could rarely get past.

John Fryer produced the Dutch trio's second album for 4AD in November 1986, and it is colder than anything else here: sequencers and drum machines with guitar used as trim. Louise followed as a single that December, a two-note synth pulse under Ronny Moorings singing like a man reading a note left on a kitchen table. Border case: darkwave.

Leeds, 1985, on the Red Rhino independent, with Chris Reed writing every song and singing like Ian Curtis with a head cold. Hollow Eyes is the template: one chord hammered flat, drums dry and loud, no chorus worth the name. Spotify carries the nineteen-track Anagram reissue, so single sides and a twelve-inch version sit alongside the original running order.