Goth rock never got any better than Bauhaus. Creeping out of the shadows in 1979 with "Bela Lugosi's Dead", one of the most gloriously macabre pop singles ever released, Bauhaus defined the sound of gothic post-punk: crawling, shuddering, lurching; glam rock with a death trip. The band's first album, In The Flat Field is a real symphonie des Grauens, an apocalyptic festival of shadowy textures and fractured, jagged melodies. Like Bowie in the depths of some nightmarish opium binge, lead ghoul Peter Murphy whoops and howls like a banshee, switching between sickly grin and horrific grimace. The rest of the band is equally dynamic, conjuring a fever dream of a sonic landscape, the likes of which had never been heard in pop music. The title track and opener, "Double Dare", are ferocious and immediate; relentless in their assault on punk's increasing creative lethargy. While there's nothing here quite as monolithic as "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the seven-minute closer "Nerves" comes close, an eerie dirge that alternately oozes and rages: German Expressionism for the 1980's.
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