Look to Your Crimson Orifice (In The Flat Field - Bauhaus)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	In The Flat Field - Bauhaus
Date:	12/02/08 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong, inventive and original debut, with innovative guitars and passionate vocals.

Disadvantages: Songs tend to follow the same build-up/pay-off structure and are often repetitive.

The debut release from Northampton goth pioneers Bauhaus sounded a lot different from my preconceptions, as I'd always imagined them as a sort of Sisters of Mercy clone with annoying electro backing. I was pleasantly surprised to be confronted with an intelligent, creative and occasionally eerie album more reminiscent of the stream-of-consciousness style of The Fall with more than a little inspiration from David Bowie's contemporary Berlin period, something that would feature with even greater prominence in later works once Brian Eno was brought into the fold.

Peter Murphy's vocals are a stand-out feature of the band, mostly confined to a croon in the style of Jim Morrison, Glenn Danzig and others, but frequently succumbing to an increase in energy and vibrancy as the songs move towards a crescendo of sorts, and surpassing Mark E. Smith's often tedious delivery in the more spoken word songs like 'St. Vitus Dance,' where the flat oration evolves into a yelled chorus. Murphy and Daniel Ash's guitars are satisfyingly crunchy and vary between cacophony and mellow, proto-goth jangles, while even imitating a Western sort of sound in the minimalist 'God in an Alcove,' and even the occasional solos in songs like the aforementioned track and finale 'Nerves,' which takes forever to get going but is ultimately enjoyable.

'In the Flat Field' is a great debut from Bauhaus and remains (in my obviously correct opinion, as always) the second best release of their short career. It's a little dark and distorted without alienating casual listeners, and the various stylistic, musical and thematic influences make for an entirely original sound, even if it quite obviously stemmed from the beginning of the eighties. But the beginning of the eighties was cool, it was only subsequent years that rendered that ten-year period so embarrassing.

1. Double Dare
2. In the Flat Field
3. God in an Alcove
4. Dive
5. Spy in the Cab
6. Small Talk Stinks
7. St. Vitus Dance
8. Stigmata Martyr
9. Nerves

Summary: Bauhaus' first album (1980).