Billed in the press release as the missing link between The Sisters of Mercy’s classic ‘First and Last and Always’ and The Mission’s own debut ‘God’s Own Medicine’ by Wayne Hussy himself expectations were necessarily grand. You could after all argue that neither band bettered those first forays and that so much more great music came from those seeds.
As someone who was there or thereabouts back in the day it’s nice to be able to say that you can clearly hear the intent and to a far greater degree than some might imagine it has worked in recapturing the mood if not entirely the dark splendour of those original works. To be honest though listening to this over again I’m far more satisfied than I thought I would be after The Mission’s previous outing.
Opening with the hypnotic ‘Another Fall From Grace’ things start well, it’s a solid song and has an almost U2-like quality to fire things up before the lighter Sisters of Mercy flavoured ‘Met-Amor-Phosis’ cuts the night. By the time the sinister, atmospheric ‘Within the Deepest Darkness (Fearful)’ melts in you already know that this is going to be the best you’ve heard of The Mission in some time.
There’s a slight change of pace for the mid-tempo ‘Blood on the Road’ which has a little trademark Sisters glimmer and a little more Mission-swagger, it’s followed closely by it’s sister song ‘Can’t Seethe Ocean for the Rain’ which has a similar upbeat but even freer take on vintage Mission.
It’s ‘Tyranny of Secrets’ though that gives the real wake up call – its a call to arms, a real faster-louder rocker with Sisters” writ large over the guitars. It might even be the best track here or maybe that comes next with the uplifting ‘Never Longer than Forever’? Both are offset nicely by the moody ‘Bullets and Bayonets’ which again retakes that slower, darker soundscape.
The spoken word ‘Valaam’ makes way for the searching ‘Jade’ which starts all slow, dark and eerie and winds a dark path to fiery conclusion of guitar. If anything ‘Only You and You Alone’ is even slower, darker and moodier and has a vintage Sisters-like quality as it shimmies in half-light.
Final track ‘Phantom Pain’ is a very different way to close as Wayne muses like a Gothic Tom Waits, over low-key atmospheric instruments and clicking drums before the song picks up pace and then dissolves again into a mess of detuned jazzy horns, not for everyone this one!
If you thought that The Mission was a spent force, or thought they would never manage t recapture the essence of their youth then think again, this is the best in years and sure to fire up the fans for the 30th Anniversary Tour.
