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6th June 1998, N.M.E.
Come inside. Close the door behind you. For some time, doomy rumours have suggested that the goth revival - or resurrection - is lurking just around the corner like Nosferatu in practical-joker mode. Cometh the hour, cometh the compilation.
The ideal party tape for people who don't like parties, 'Nocturnal' is a loose collection of all things goth, goth-tinged, or just a bit pale and depressed. There's no recorded incidence of Morrissey skulking around The Slimelight caked in flour, yet The Smiths have crept on with 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. Equally, you have to squint hard through your darkglasses to see the link between Joy Division and Alien Sex Fiend, other than neither will ever be featured on Goal Of The Month.
It's undeniable that much of this stuff ranges from the ridiculous to the ridiculous, some of it preposterously enjoyable - Bauhaus' 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' speeding by like an end-of-pier ghost train, the electro-filth of Soft Cell's 'Sex Dwarf', The Mission actually using the dread words "Beltane fires" on 'Deliverance' - some of it just plain excruciating. Love & Rockets, The March Violets and Clan Of Xymox are all barely living proof it wasn't just the lighting that was dim in those cavernous clubs.
But, hey, it's not all fun fun fun. The best tracks grasp all the opulence and gloom of the gothic, transcending those risible snakebite'n'panstick clichés. Nick Cave appears three times, while the Cranes' 'Jewel' and Japan's 'Ghosts' are as twisted and unknowable as ever.
'Nocturnal' is highly enjoyable, which was surely never the point. Get down. Six feet down.
(7/10)
Reviewed by Victoria Segal
© NME 1998
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