The Sisters of Mercy – ‘First And Last And Always’ CD

‘First and Last and Always’ is the debut studio album by English gothic rock band the Sisters of Mercy. It was released on March 11th, 1985, through the band’s self-financed Merciful Release label.

With the band itself falling to bits shortly after the March 1985 debut of ‘First and Last and Always,’ the album’s place in the skewed history of the rise of goth rock would, on one hand, be permanently linked with that discord but, on the other, not impacted in the slightest, leaving the fractious set’s success and structure to become a blueprint for an entire generation of up-and-comers.

With static drumbeats and jangle-angled guitars backing Andrew Eldritch’s atonic, graveyard vocals, the songs on ‘First and Last and Always’ paid to play alongside the ghosts of myriad forgotten post-punkers as well as the band’s own goth forebears.