Heartland

What we've assembled here for a start is the old website's contents (the first four Trouser Press Record Guides, those highly opinionated review books of '70s and '80s alternative music) plus The Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock, which has never before been online. While the good news is that the latter's discographies have been updated, the reviews haven't — virtually nothing since 1996 has gotten our critical attention ... yet. But it will.

The Sisters of Mercy, an originally all-male Leeds group named after a Leonard Cohen song and an order of cut-the-crap Catholic nuns, began by playing what they jokingly called heavy metal, which it sort of was; an odd (but prescient) feat, considering that the band's "drummer" was Doktor Avalanche, a rhythm generator. Andrew Eldritch has always been the band's focus: chief lyricist, co-producer of virtually every track (briefly at first with Psychedelic Fur John Ashton, then with Dave Allen of Associates/Cure fame), graphics designer and lead singer, in a deep, aptly gothic voice.

then with Dave Allen of Associates/Cure fame),