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Una delle personalità più sinistre ed affascinanti dell’intero movimento dark è sicuramente rappresentata da Andrew Eldritch (all’anagrafe Andrew William Harvey Taylor), o altrimenti detto il Messia del Gotico e dai suoi (o per meglio dire dalle sue) The Sisters of Mercy (nome tratto da una canzone del celebre cantautore americano Leonard Cohen).
Dopo l’uscita di quel capolavoro di musica gotica che corrisponde al nome di "First and Last and Always", la band sembrò sul punto di scomparire a causa delle defezioni del chitarrista Gary Marx e del bassista Craig Adams, fondatori della band insieme a Eldritch, che successivamente diedero vita agli ottimi Mission. Quello che seguì fu per il vampiro gotico un periodo molto burrascoso, diviso com’era tra i suoi problemi di alcool e droghe e la lunga querelle che lo contrappose agli ex membri per stabilire chi, in futuro, avrebbe potuto fregiarsi del nome Sisters of Mercy. Risolte tali questioni ed assunta al basso l’affascinante strega del rock Patricia Morrison, Eldritch nel 1987 dà alle stampe "Floodland", altro disco immenso, che raggiunge un inaspettato successo commerciale, tant’è che scalò progressivamente la classifica inglese assestandosi alla settima posizione.
Rispetto all’album in studio precedente, in questo "Floodland" sono presenti marcate contaminazioni elettroniche ed un sound complessivamente più gothic rock. L’opener “Dominion (mother Russia)” rispecchia fedelmente quanto detto. Assoluto capolavoro di gothic rock caratterizzato da un martellante ritmo di batteria e basso che scandiscono il tempo, chitarre ipnotiche, contrapposizioni tra la voce profonda di Andrew e quella femminile (grande voce anche quella di Patricia), in un mix affascinante ed avvolgente. La successiva “Flood 1” è quanto di più oscuro e tetro ci si possa immaginare. La voce di Eldritch, anziché destarci da un incubo sonoro, ci spinge dentro anima e corpo, una voce tagliente più del rasoio che non dà scampo all’ascoltatore. Si arriva, quindi, all’apoteosi e, cioè, a “Lucretia (my reflection)”, contraddistinta da un giro di basso tra i più belli del genere intero. La successiva “1959” (cover degli Stooges) è forse la ballata più emozionante mai composta dal gruppo. Si odono soltanto le timbriche malinconiche di Andrew accompagnate dal suono soave di un pianoforte. “Flood 2” è la degna continuazione sonora di “Flood 1”, anche se stavolta le tastiere ed i vocals, anziché spingerci nella desolazione più totale, cercano di farci vedere la luce, seppure fioca e lontana. “This Corrosion” è la canzone più elettronica dell’ intero disco, in cui la fanno da padrone i sintetizzatori nel corpo della stessa, per poi esplodere nel “corrosivo” coro di Eldritch e della Morrison. Il viaggio di non ritorno prosegue con “Driven Like the Snow”, caratterizzata dal gelido incedere del basso e la tetra melodia delle tastiere, con “Neverland”, di una oscurità quasi soffocante e con “Torch” , canzone che suona quasi accennata e, per tale motivo, di grande effetto. Chiude degnamente l’ album la ossessiva ed opprimente “Colours” che ricorda, nelle parti ritmiche, “Ribbons” del successivo “Vision Thing”.
Che dire, in conclusione, se non che sarebbe un delitto non ascoltare questo "Floodland" che costituisce, a mio giudizio, il punto più alto della discografia della banda e, forse, di tutto il dark rock.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Dominion / Mother Russia (07:01)
In the heat of the night
In the heat of the day
When I close my eyes
When I look your way
When I meet the fear that lies inside
When I hear you say
In the heat of the moment
Say, say, say
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Come a time
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Some say prayers
Some say prayers
I say mine
In the light of the fact
On the lone and level
Sand stretch far away
In the heat of the action
In the settled dust
Hold hold and say
In the meeting of mined
Down in the streets of shame
In the betting of names on gold to rust
In the land of the blind
Be...King, king, king, king
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Come a time
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Some say prayers
Some say prayers
I say mine
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Some say prayers
Some say prayers
I say mine
In the heat of the night
in the heat of the day
When I close my eyes
When I look your way
When I meet the fear that lies inside
When I hear you say
In the heat of the moment
Say, say, say
Some day, some day, some day, Dominion
Some say prayers
Some say prayers
I say mine
I say mine
I say mine
We serve an old moan in a dry season
A lighthouse keeper in the desert sun
Dreamers of sleepers and white treason
We dream of rain and the history of the gun
There's a lighthouse in the middle of Prussia
A white house in a red square
I'm living in films for the sake of Russia
A Kino Runner for the DDR
And the fifty-two daughters of the revolution
Turn the gold to chrome
Gift...nothing to lose
Stuck inside of Memphis with the mobile home, sing:
Mother Russia
Mother Russia
Mother Russia rain down down down
Mother Russia
Mother Russia
Mother Russia rain down
03 Lucretia My Reflection (04:56)
I hear the roar of a big machine
Two worlds and in between
Hot metal and methedrine
I hear empire down
I hear empire down
I hear the roar of a big machine
Two worlds and in between
Love lost, fire at will
Dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill, I hear
Dive, bombers, and
Empire down
Empire down
I hear the sons of the city and dispossessed
Get down, get undressed
Get pretty but you and me
We got the kingdom, we got the key
We got the empire, now as then
We don't doubt, we don't take direction
Lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me
We look hard
We look through
We look hard to see for real
Such things I hear, they don't make sense
I don't see much evidence
I don't feel. I don't feel. I don't Feel
A long train held up by page on page
A hard reign held up by rage
Once a railroad
Now it's done...
I hear the roar of a big machine
Two worlds and in between
Hot metal and methedrine
I hear empire down...
We got the empire, now as then
We don't doubt, we don't take reflection
Lucretia, my direction, dance the ghost with me...
04 1959 (04:10)
Living as an angel in the
Place that I was born
Living on air
Living in heaven
Giving the lie down, the line
To the There's my heaven
And I know
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
And the wind blows still
And the wind blows wild again
For a little child an never kill this clean
This way
And it feels like me today
Tell me
Do you feel the same?
Isabelle?
Or do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
...Do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
And the wind blows wild again
And the wind blows wild
In nineteen fifty-nine
In fifty-nine
Isabelle
Do you, do you fell the same?
Come with me
Like a little child
Like another gun
Like homeless, restless, known to none, like
Way beyond the line
Like it never was
In nineteen fifty-nine
05 This Corrosion (10:55)
Gimme the Ring, kissed and toll'd
Gimme something that I missed (Gimme the ring)
A hand to hold, wild and what it seems(Gimme the ring)
Kill the king, when love is the law,
And the we'll turn round... (Gimme the ring)
Gimme dream child
And do you hear me call? (Gimme the ring)
On the loan and on the level
...still on the floor (Gimme the ring)
Sing dream child
And do you hear at all?
CHORUS
(Sing)
(Sing)
Hey now, hey now now, sing This Corrosion to me
Hey now, hey now now, sing This Corrosion to me
Hey now, hey now now, sing This Corrosion to me
Hey now, hey now now, sing...
Gimme siren, child and do you hear me?
Gimme siren, child, and do you hear me call?
Sing, child, of right and wrong
Gimme things that don't last long
Gimme siren, child, and do you hear me call?
CHORUS
On daze, like this
In times like these
I feel an animal deep inside
Heel to haunch on bended knees
Living on if and if I tried,
Somebody send me... please...
Dream wars and a ticket to seem
Giving out and in
Selling the don't belong
Well, what do you say
D'you have a word for Giving Away?
Got a song for me?
CHORUS
I got nothing to say I ain't said before
I bled all I can, I won't bleed no more
I don't need no one to understand
Why the blood run hold
The hired hand
On heart
Hand of God
Floodland and Driven Apart
Run cold
Turn
Cold
Burn
Like a healing hand
Like a healing hand
Like a healing hand
Like a healing hand
06 Flood II (06:46)
And her hallwayMoves
Like the oceanMoves
And her hallwayMoves
Like the sea
Like the sea
She says no no no no harm will come your way
She says bring it on down, bring on the wave
She says: nobody done no harm
Grace of God and raise your arms
She says: face it and it's a place to stay
This, this is the way it was
This, this is the way it is
When the water come rushing, rushing in
CHORUS
She says
She says anytime
Raise your arms
Flood
And her hallway
Like...
Like...
Like a million voices call my name
Like a million voices calling
Not now, not never again...
Sitting here now in this bar for hours
Strange men rent strange flowers
Seconds to the drop but it feels like hours and I
Think I'm going to...going to...
This, this is the way it was
This, this is the way it is
When the water come rushing, rushing in
CHORUS
And her hallway...
CHORUS
09 Torch (03:49)
And now the torch
And shadows lead
Were it not so black and not so hard to see
How can it help you when you don't know what you need
How can anybody set you free?
Would he walk upon the water
If he couldn't walk away?
And would you
Would you carry the torch
For me?
And what if I gave you the key
To the doors of your design...
Lit the corridors of desire?
Where if not so black
And not so hard to see
What use to you then any fire?
Would he walk upon the water
If he couldn't walk away?
And would you
Carry the torch for me?
Would he walk upon the water
If he couldn't walk away?
And would you
Would you carry the torch for me?
Would you carry the torch
For me?
Would you carry the torch
For me?
Would you carry the torch
For me?
10 Colours (07:18)
You reap what you sow
Put your face to the ground
Here come the marching men
Your colours wrapped around
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