The Sisters Of Mercy – BBC Sessions 1982-1984

It's hard to believe that hardened Sister's fans won't already have these songs in various forms (I have them on cassette, vinyl, CD and mp3 in various iterations), but it's nice to have a complete and re-mastered version (although I'm not entirely sure it's all the BBC sessions – I have a vinyl bootleg which has versions of Gimme Shelter and Adrenochrome that claim to be BBC radio sessions).

Upwards of £50.00 for 3 sides of vinyl is frankly, taking the fucking piss, but I was in a bad mood and needed cheering up when I stumbled upon a cache of copies in SE London, so I bought it anyway. The packaging is exactly right – a classic Sisters cover, with the nice touch that even the inside of the cover is black.

The first Peel session is clearly the best, featuring as it does the classic 'MKI' line up before that hippy from Dead or Alive ruined everything. Hearing it on Peel's show was my first proper introduction to The Sisters (I'd seen them ing UK Decay at The Clarendon prior to this, but it was very lacklustre performance and I didn't take much notice), and I played it over and over again on my shitty little tape deck long before I got around to buying any of the records.

Of main interest is Good Things, one of the few songs that never previously got an official release, and it was always my favourite of their early material. Dystopian in the extreme, it's one of their most political songs, and has a fantastic driving bass line that wouldn't sound out of place in an early Motorhead set. It also contains one of Eldritch's finest lines – "Out there snipers work the ridges, building bombs and blowing bridges/ Out there on a darkened road, the lines are dead, and the cars explode."

The original of Jolene is one of my favourite songs ever, so I always wanted the Sisters version to be as great as their other covers (and the really did have a way with covers), but it just doesn’t work, the phase/ delay on the guitar lose the tune, and all in all, it's a wasted opportunity. The only major disappointment of the LP (apart from the fucking price).

The rest of it, as you might imagine, is slightly different versions of the songs you know and love from your Sisters collection.

The sound has been cleaned up and sounds pin sharp. However, if you've been used to listening to bootlegs taken from ropey old cassettes, you may find the loss of wow, flutter, his and other sundry 'defects' intrinsic to the bootlegger's art a bit of a disappointment. It all sounds a bit polite and un-gnarly in its cleaned-up form, whether this is a loss or a gain depends on where you stand re: Signal to Noise ratios. I lean towards the Noise end of the spectrum, so my disappointment may not be yours, and it does after all deliver on the promise of the title.

If you're a Sisters collector none of the above will matter, and you’ve probably already got a copy (although for those sad enough to keep it mint in the shrink-wrap, I suppose my opinion may make you feel better about never actually playing it).

8/10 for the songs, 8/10 for the packaging, but 5/10 for the egregious price.

Some mistakes I have noticed with the streaming version of this album, specifically the David 'Kid' Jensen Session: 1983, is that the tracks are mislabelled. The initial track "Heartland" plays the track "Burn" instead; track 2 "Jolene" stays the same however; track 3 "Valentine" plays "Heartland" instead; and track 4 "Burn" plays "Valentine" instead...

Pressing is pretty noisy, but that aside, it has decent mastering--and best of all, finally a decent studio version of "Jolene".

Why is this release listed under "albums" as opposed to "compilations" on the artist main page?

Poor quality recording, I know its bootleg but we are in 2023 and with the help of technology a lot better job couve been done

Does the world need this release? NO! Fans have this release as bootleg since years. Coloured vinyl doesn´t make it better. Save your money for new Goth Bands. You have more value for your money. The Sisters promised a new album that never came true. Releases like this only block the pressing plants and really new and good releases have to wait. It's just a waste of resources. And please stop deleting serious reviews if you don't like them, it's the truth and we're not in kindergarten!

Wow this is amazing. Far better than the boots.Super quiet vinyl. A lot of the songs sound much better than the originals - especially the FALAA songs. "Walk Away" is a different beast altogether. Makes the released version sound artificially polished.

Mastering matters! Indeed, it is a major bottleneck to good sound (maybe especially with analogue, but surely with digital too?). This excellent compilation proves that definitively.

I heard of this late and consider myself lucky to get a copy. Super flat, quiet vinyl, and a good mastering job. This is far above bootleg quality - on a high end stereo the sound is excellent, though the 84 session is not quite up to the standards of the earlier sessions sonically. What can I say, I'm a Sisters fan from the beginning, being still enamoured of their earlier material, so this is a score of note as far as I'm concerned - to get all this wonderful gothic early material in lp quality sound is indeed "nothing but the good things". ~*~

I confirm that it is a more than good print. Two negative facts: it costs a lot and the packaging is poor for the purchase price. I would have preferred a black vinyl and a cover with more information and maybe some photos.

I compared back to back the BBC release with some classic bootlegs (Psychedelic sessions 1/2, Halloween in Arkham, The dancers reward,Lord of darkness) and the difference in sound quality is enormous, while the boots sound muddy,very rough with no soundstage, no highs and obviously very little insight on details and in the end very little fun, the BBC release has beautiful sparkling guitars , a great soundstage and the voice is crystal clear. Not to mention that finally you have the whole version of Heartland with the intro and outro.
Definitely a huge uprade in of sound qualtiy that does justice to the songs, fucking awesome!
(My system : Speakers : Harbeth SHL5 ,Turntable : Project Xpression with Hana SH cartridge, Phono pre amp: Croft RIAA R, Pre amp : Croft Micro 25R, Power amp : Croft Series 7.)