The Cult were more metal, The Cure were more singable. Fields Of The Nephilim had better hats. But when it came to full-on, paisley-shirt, pointy-shoes pretensions, only The Sisters Of Mercy were more all-out gothic than The Mission.
Nothing’s changed, really: comparisons with frontman Wayne Hussey’s old band have plagued him throughout his career. The two acts competed for chart action between 1986 and ’90, before falling victim to alt.rock and the vanishing underground, but their legacies stand tall. The Mission’s 1986 debut, God’s Own Medicine, was massively ostentatious (the reverb; soundscapes; showing off!) but its high points, Severina and Wasteland, still raise the old neck hairs, even if the remixes don’t quite cut it. Fans will relish the original extended cut of Love Me To Death, though.
The following year’s The First Chapter was little more than a cheeky collection of indie singles, boosted here with live stuff in the absence of truly essential rarities. We can forgive Hussey that, because 1988’s Children, produced by John Paul Jones, was a triumph. The big hit, Tower Of Strength, is still a winner in original and remixed form, but for many, the instrumental epic Tadeusz (1912-1988) was, and remains, the best thing they ever did. Nostalgically essential.
