After a decade and a half in the contractual wilderness, touring but at loggerheads with record companies, and carrying around a reputation for being ‘awkward’, The Sisters of Mercy have some kind of stigma around them. People either haven’t heard of them, dismiss them as goth nonsense, or don’t care. A shambolic battle against the elements in London saw them (deservedly) drubbed in the press. A week later, as they arrive on stage in Glasgow, it’s obvious that we’re now looking at chalk and cheese. 

The same elements are there : the abandon of smoke, the lights that make God jealous, the aggressive and human mix of man on guitars and a big machine roaring away as a rhythm section, this time in a synergy. It’s this kind of glorious noise that makes The Sisters regard themselves as either ‘intellectual love gods’ or an ‘industrial groove machine’.

With a new lineup of Ben Christo (found on MySpace, apparently), and the wonderfully charistmatic Robochrist backing Andrew Eldritch- the sole remaining constant throughout the bands quarter century as stubborn rock bastards – The Sisters it seems have something to prove. A set divided made of roughly 40% new material from the bands elusive but promising Next Album showcases an abrasive side that perfectly matches later material from “Floodland” and “Vision Thing” in the set. The remaining 60% takes a scattergun approach, as songs that illuminated indie discos in the Eighties are brought to life in a relentless assualt of sound, smoke, and mirrors.

Instead of setting themselves personally as the main attraction, the band bury themselves under an atmosphere of fog and flashing colours and a uniformly relentless sound of songs that serves to highlight the music and not the ego. Teenage bedroom favourites such as “Alice”, “Anaconda”, “Temple Of Love”, “This Corrision”, “Dominion”, “Lucretia”, are brought to life in all new sparkly rock incarnations. As Von (as Eldritch laughingly calls himself) grooves away in his own world, it’s the remaining members, a fiercely interactive Robochrist in particular, that drive the band to some kind of vitality. If you forgo the conventional idea of a gig where the band are visible and showmen, and instead, allow yourself to enjoy what makes The Sisters different to the rest, it becomes an altogether more rewarding evening.

Being a Sisters fan is a notoriously frustrating experience – tours are often years apart, members join and leave with a monotonous regularity, and there hasn’t been a record release in sixteen years. But on the evidence of tonights performance, The Sisters have still got ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, in spades

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