MELODY MAKER
1987 Review by Mick Mercer

The Gothic genre has grown and grown, as the bands continue to groan. I have probably felt more boredom watching those bands than scanning the papers for West Ham results, but a once interesting idea occasionally throws up oddities still. ÒMake of this what you will,Ó bellows Mathur, delivering it discus-style. I make a cocktail dress only to be arrested down Old Compton Street, but not before succumbing to the dark rites within.

ItÕs simple. The photo, of three disheveled lovelies, sunning themselves in a coach which deserves Vincent Price as its driver, says it all. Forty five grave with more style, cold and cunning. As though Kate Bush was having a mental breakdown, Margot Day howls in ethereal fashion down the endless corridors of the songs, flute warbling away in ÒVampyreÓ, reminiscent of Bauhaus ÒDark EntriesÓ uplifting in gloom and silence. The Plague have this way with perfume and decay. Maddening with their thumping drums, they invest ÒmurderÓ with the growling guitar and busy bass, abruptly disheveled in ÒNever DieÓ. Impressively disorientating, spookily effective, they hold you captive with dripping guitars and tick tock percussion. ÒDirty bodies in the night, stinking needs and rotting lives,Ósings Margot, ever the sweet-talker. ÒNow I want to kill them all, hold them tight and squeeze their balls.Ó Saucy!

---Mick Mercer