It could be anyone up there. Given that most people don’t know who the new guitarists are, it is anyone up there. How punk.

In the cold light of morning, The Sisters Of Mercy are not a tempting prospect anymore.

Shorn of a record contract for a decade, 16 years since their last album, and on their 25^th Anniversary “Bite The Silver Bullet” tour, The Sisters can’t help but be a band that is a nostalgia act : in the absence of any new releases, all but the hardened few are aware of the lineup changes or new material the band are still doggedly cranking out. (If by ‘new’ you mean songs of between three and thirteen years old that have yet to be released on CD or MP3). The Sisters are a nostalgia act by default.

And so to the third month of their longest tour in their history. Overheard in the bar, some wrinkled woman in black says she could have stayed at home in a darkened room and drunk cans of warm lager to roughly the same effect. In the notes to an old album, The Sisters said they created a space where you could lose – or find – yourself. Here The Sisters instead create a space where you can lose the band. It could be anyone up there. Given that most people don’t know who the new guitarists are, it is anyone up there. How punk.

Swamped by an absurd amount of smoke, pisspoor sound, and some of the most fantastic lights this side of the Apocalypse, The Sisters Of Mercy are demoted from being a Militant Groove Machine or Intellectual Love Gods to mere Anonymous Shadows in a room in London. New guitarists Ben Christo and Chris Catalyst (also trading as ‘Robochrist’), the latest in a very long line of Sisters axemen, seem in fact to be far more essential to the band than their vocalist whose presence is merely physical. Both stalk the stage with the kind of passion, precision, and enthusiastic abandon reminiscent of The Sisters at the heights of their Storm-Und-Drang debauchery. However, despite physical appearances to the contrary, Andrew Eldritch is not here : he is a skulking presence who is barely audible and whose singing voice appears to be in terminal decline.

The crowd perks up for the occasional, contractual-obligation Hit Single From The Eighties, but with half the set made of newer, unfamiliar material, the atmosphere palls into palpable frustration and even boredom. At numerous points in the set the crowd heckle the sound engineer in unison “UP! UP! UP!”.

The excellent new songs – “Crash And Burn”, “Summer”, “Suzanne” – are submerged in a sludge of non-vocals and smoke. Which is a shame, because the new material is certainly as worthy as any of their old material. However, tonight The Sisters fight a losing battle against an apathetic vocalist, a slurry of smoke, and an appalling sound mix.

Even A good band can have a bad night. So much for a celebration of Twenty Five Years of smoke and mirrors. It’s more of a wake.

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