Whitehouse – Great White Death

if you're looking for a copy of this, send me a message.

Does anyone know what was the source for this pressing? Original master or digit-remaster as with other releases from this period... Thanks

There is an official Come Org cassette of this album (wdc 883069), but it's extremely rare, and I don't have a copy to photograph unfortunately.

I don't see how anyone could be underwhelmed by this, this is very clearly still the masterpiece of Whitehouse's original career phase. There's so much more focus on structure, in particular building and release of tension, not to mention that their sound palette expanded well outside the /hiss/water limitations of their early work into using analog synth drones and other atmospheric studio trickery, without the (in hindsight somewhat minor) softening of the blow seen on Thank Your Lucky Stars & Twice Is Enough. It sounds like Whitehouse really achieve a true "studio" album here and allowed themselves to work with an actual producer for the first time, which must have been no easy task considering Bennett's notorious ego (and those of pretty everyone else involved in this project), and the difficulty of finding a producer who would not somehow dilute the groups raw power and integrity. I'm not someone who's some kind of elitist over early Whitehouse vs. later, digital Whitehouse; there may have been a lull in the early 90s (up until Quality Time), but I think Whitehouse's last few albums after that rank among their best work. But it's difficult to not feel this is still their best album.

Hey Discogs! Why aren't you being vigilant about sellers listing on this page...this version..,then saying at the bottom of their offer "peter kurten cover." I believe that's a separate listing. Not to mention it's a fucking bootleg.
Discogs gets all over my ass if I start a new listing and I put a comma in the wrong place. Yet they're letting assholes try and pawn off their GWD boots as the original.
Shane shame shame.

For some reason it took me longer to get into this album than any of Whitehouse's others when I first became a fan and started buying every piece of Whitehouse material I could get my hands on. Sonically it's alot deeper than previous albums and the vocals play a bigger part. After repeated listens it's actually become a very comfortable album for me that I can listen to from start to finish, it's very coherent as a whole, and something you can really sink into and get lost in. The special addition works even better I think with the long version of "My Cock's On Fire" added on to the end, capping off what's a rather short album with this 13+ minute long beast of a track. Whitehouse is said to have basically started the genre of 'power-electronics' with their earlier album "Erector" but for me, "Great White Death" really defines the term 'power-electronics', and alot of current PE groups seem to just be copying off of this and some of Whitehouse's earlier releases. I'm just as much a fan of Whitehouse's more current releases, but this really has to be the highlight of the first part of their career. I'm only as old as this album and alot of electronic music from the 80's sounds alot less impressive to me than it probably did to people my age when it originally came out, but this is music that hasn't lost much of it's effect after 25+ years. It's sickeningly good, it will make you feel evil to love it.

"Great White Death" remains Whitehouse's masterpiece. After almost ten records filled with hisses, whistles and screams, the sound turns into menacing and creepy electronics, not very noisy but much more disturbing. Bennet's vocals reach their best in hymns like "You Don't Have To Say Please" and "I'm Coming Up Your Ass", evil, vile, violent and sick. Somehow I think the second period of Whitehouse's activity never was as brilliant as the first, and that still today they keep living on the fame and perfection of this LP.