Bauhaus

Shadow of Light/Archive (Beggars Banquet)

Originally released when London’s Bat Cave was still in existence, this is the gothic Rosetta Stone writ large in blood on black tablets. There’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” natch, alongside all nine official Bauhaus “promotional films,” but it’s the stunning live performance at London’s Old Vic Theater from 1982 that really captures the band’s dark magic. Murphy preens and struts like a devilish, Cocteau-ian marionette, enunciating his whipcord wordplay with the garish finesse of a butcher’s blade held quick to the apocalyptic heartbeat of Kevin Haskins’ relentless tribal drumming, the sturm und drang thrum of David J.’s writhing basslines, and Daniel Ash’s imperious, maniacal guitar work. Consider your gothling’s stocking stuffed.

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This article appears in December 23 • 2005.

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