iTunes

Opening the iTunes Store.If iTunes doesn't open, click the iTunes application icon in your Dock or on your Windows desktop.
iTunes

iTunes is the world's easiest way to organize and add to your digital media collection.

We are unable to find iTunes on your computer. To preview and buy music from First and Last and Always (Remastered) by Sisters of Mercy, download iTunes now.

Already have iTunes? Click I Have iTunes to open it now.

I Have iTunes Free Download
iTunes for Mac + PC

First and Last and Always (Remastered)

Sisters of Mercy

View More By This Artist

Open iTunes to preview, buy, and download music.

iTunes Review

With their name inspired by the Leonard Cohen tune and their sound engineered by the electronics of the era, the Sisters Of Mercy were a band meant to define the ‘80s. Except that the band’s endless personnel, production and label problems made them a band with a greater legacy than hits. Singer Andrew Eldritch denied the “Gothic” tag, calling the group “children of Altamont” and recording covers of the Stooges’ “1969” and the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” on their way to their debut album. First and Last and Always is, quite simply, brilliant. A challenging modern sound that battled between the inhumanity of a technological world and a basic human dread that the group turned beautiful with their synthesizers and drum machines. “Black Planet” is a simple anthem. “No Time to Cry” aches with a sense of futile urgency. “A Rock and A Hard Place” sounds like a mammoth hit. “Marian” is an obsessive-compulsive love song. “Possession” and “Some Kind of Stranger” solidify the group’s intensity even as the group was falling to pieces. This "Remastered” version of the album includes an even more desperate-sounding version of their epic, “Some Kind of Stranger.”

Customer Reviews

Best Bass since Joy Division

It is good to finally have access to B side of the"Walk Away EP "' and "B"side Blood Money & Bury Me Deep. Lost the records and very difficult to find. I still have vinyl of "AfterHours" This is very moody" Tune In Turn on Burn Out in the "acid " rain. This place is death with with walls, ask Alice. Rise and Reverberate.

More competent than the early singles...

...but still rather low fi even by 80's standards. The guitars are plinky, the drum machine tracks are EQed almost into oblivion, and Andrew hadn't yet learned to sing.

That said, it is probably the best set of songs they ever put out. The Itunes review isn't accurate; the band did break up after this record (-over- this record, according to some stories) but you can hear one half of the band as The Sisters of Mercy later on, and the other as "The Mission". On the latter, your mileage may vary.

"Amphetamine Logic" is a great song buried by the production (is that an ORGAN?), but "Black Planet", "Rock and a Hard Place", and the title track are audible. "Some Kind of Stranger" is great in part because Andrew hadn't learned to sing; it sounds vaguely threatening as well as desperate because he loses the tune as it goes on. Which is the point.

Of the added tracks, "On the Wire" is the highlight, but they date to an era when the band's studio abilities were even more limited.

Merciful Release

The only LP they released before Eldritch reformed SoM in the late 80s, this is really good, but not their best offering (Body & Soul EP is). I recall the first five songs were written by Hussey, with the last five done by Marx. As someone else mentioned, the other five were B sides of various singles, though I'm not sure where the "Long Train" version of "Train" was from (I thought I had all the albums?!), but I ended up with it on tape. Anyhow, SoM up through this point was a hellaciously great band, and songs like "Body Electric" (Body & Soul version) and "Temple of Love" are still two of the best and most powerful tunes I've ever heard.

Biography

Formed: 1980 in Leeds, England

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

One of England's leading goth bands of the 1980s, the Sisters of Mercy play a slow, gloomy, ponderous hybrid of metal and psychedelia, often incorporating dance beats; the one constant in the band's career has been deep-voiced singer Andrew Eldritch. (There is some disagreement as to whether the group took its name from an order of Catholic nuns or from the Leonard Cohen song of the same name.) Eldritch originally formed the band in 1980 with guitarist Gary Marx and recorded its first single with...
Full Bio

Top Albums and Songs By Sisters of Mercy

Listeners Also Bought

Become a fan of the iTunes and App Store pages on Facebook for exclusive offers, the inside scoop on new apps and more.