3 CD collection spanning the 35 year history of the seminal goth and industrial legends including five previously unreleased recordings.
Subterraneanly subtitled A 35-Year Trip Through Fiendish History 1982-2017 A.D. and Beyond, this three-CD set gambols with gothic glee through the career of an undervalued British institution.
As early birds on London’s Batcave scene Alien Sex Fiend are forever portrayed as semi-comic over-the-top goths, tied to the early ’80s. It’s partly their own, sporting sense of humour that has allowed others to belittle them, but outside this country’s fashion trends they’ve developed a degree of respect in territories as far-flung as Japan and the US, moving into the industrial and electronica scenes with music which is – in case you haven’t…
…bothered to listen to them since goth’s golden age – surprisingly nimble, witty and muscular.
Their tongue-in-cheek horror imagery adorns extended grooves such as Now I’m Feeling Zombified and I’m Doing Time in a Maximum Security Twilight Zone. These may share vocabulary with The Cramps, but their body language prefers rhythmic dance music to garage rock. Often, produced by Youth, they sound like a smarter Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and claims that they influenced The Prodigy and Sleaford Mods aren’t as daft as you might think.
Kris Needs’s vibrant sleeve notes emphasise that goth clubbing was always as much about fun as frostiness, and this romp through Mr. and Mrs. Fiend’s oeuvre confirms that.
Diehards will enjoy unreleased tracks and mixes (and two teasers from their next album), while those who only pretended to die to look cool at the Batcave will find that resurrecting one’s fondness for this ironic gloom makes deathless sense.
CD1
1. Dead and Re-Buried (06:01)
2. Dance of the Dead (03:11)
3. I Walk the Line (04:52)
4. Haunted House (05:58)
5. Now I’m Feeling Zombiefied (08:00)
6. Tarot (Alt Mix 5) (07:32)
7. Carcass (Carrion Mix) (03:07) **
8. Gurl at the End of My Gun (02:55)
9. Smells Like… (05:49)
10. R.I.P. (Blue Crumb Truck) (Demo) (05:01)
11. The Impossible Mission (04:25)
12. Bun-Ho! (Cranium Mix) (05:22)
13. Inferno (Oscar Madness Edit Mix) (05:29) *
CD2
1. Hands of the Silken (00:45)
2. On a Mission (08:21)
3. Ignore the Machine (Electrode Mix) (05:08)
4. Lips Can’t Go (05:43)
5. I’m Doing Time in a Maximum Security Twilight Home (06:02)
6. E.S.T. (Trip to the Moon) (08:17)
7. Garbage (05:50)
8. Attack!!! (12″ Version) (08:30)
9. Gotta Have It (Sliced and Diced Mix) (05:28)
10. Isolation (07:09)
11. Comatose (The Ultra Mix) (09:28)
CD3
1. I Walk the Line (Alt Mix 2) (04:38) *
2. Baby (05:39)
3. Mad Daddy Drives a UFO (04:19)
4. Hurricane Fighter Plane (06:48)
5. One Way Ticket (05:16)
6. In and Out of My Mind (04:49)
7. Invisible (The Beyond Mix) (06:30) **
8. Ain’t Got Time to Bleed (04:12)
9. Information Overload (ReVamp Mix) (06:28)
10. Get Into It (03:44)
11. Evolution (Back From the Dread Pt 2) (05:41)
12. Instant Karma Sutra (07:14)
13. Now I’m Feeling Zombiefied (Alt Mix 3) (10:01) *
14. Fiendish Liquid (00:18)
* previously unreleased
** from the new studio album “Possessed”