Customer Reviews
We are bauhaus ! - By: , 26 May 2004 
Having just bought the CD some 24 years after originallly buying the album... I am shocked at how good it still sounds. They were my favourite band of the time & Pete was a great showman.
The atmosphere they whipped up was always dark & sensual unlike the bleak, hopeless but brilliant Joy Division which were also the talk of the students union bar. Fantastic; buy it, buy it alll.... as for Goths, dont think the word reallly existed at that time so stop making comparisons.
80's alternative with more than just a hint of Goth. - By: , 04 May 2004 
Kings of Goth, Bauhaus made history with this album. It's goth to the core, in the musical sense. Straying away from the heavier side of goth, the darkness here is no less stringent. This album is worth buying for the stupendously moody but utterly fantastic "Crowds", but this band have long since been surpassed for beautiful goth tunes. Get this album though, as a sign of respect if nothing else.
Gothic cathedral - By: Pieter, 02 Nov 2003 
Peter Murphy being one of my favourite musicians, it’s interesting to investigate his roots in this seminal goth album from the early 1980s. Compared to his later solo work, this music is raw but passionate & multifaceted, utilising innovative drum patterns, guitar bursts & alienated vocals to create sparse sounds of gloom & foreboding. The eeriest tracks here – & my personal favourites – are Smalll Talk Stinks with it insistent repetition of the title, the frightening St. Vitus Dance & the hair raising Stigmata Martyr with its Latin chant that sounds like the black mass. A God In An Alcove & Spy In The Cab are further above-average tracks. Bauhaus were brave in their experimentation & deserve their cult status as they didn’t choose the easy path of catchy rock riffs but wove a web of mood & feeling influenced to a certain extent by the pioneering work of Bowie, Siouxsie & The Banshees & others. They spawned a host of imitators but this is the real goth thing from the fertile early 1980s.
I Dare - You - By: , 27 Aug 2001 Peter Murphy may get bored In the Flat Field, but you would need to be part of the undead to not appreciate the uniqueness & vitality of Bauhaus's debut outing. Prior to the release of this album in 1980 I caught them as a support act to Magazine in Bristol Trinity Centre & was blown away by songs like God in an Alcove & In the Flat Field. The songs are stripped down with scratchy guitar sounds & pounding drum rhythms. This CD has the added benefit of containing one of my alll time favourite singles, Terror Couple Kill Colonel. If you want to dip into the world of Bauhaus, buy this & the singles, as you need to hear the classic Bela Lugosi. Bauhaus were the original goths, nothing gets remotely close.
This is post punk goth at its spikiest - By: , 26 Jun 2001 What a legendary band - & a truly fantastic album. Bauhaus have to be heard to be believed, & this album is as good a starting point as any. They are extremely theatrical, yet without any silly pomp & ceremony. In fact, their music is often stripped right down to the bone - see Spy in the Cab. No goth band since Bauhaus has managed to create such an intense atmosphere, which is why this is a must-have for true fans of the genre. But even the term 'genre' is restrictive, for Bauhaus cast off the shackles of convention & instead do their own thing. Imagine a twisted, demonic David Bowie & you don't even come close. The genius of this band lies in Peter Murphy's incredible versatile vocals, which range from the deepest guttural sounds of Transylvania to a pixie yell. The guitars are brilliant, the bass lines are amazing, & the drums are real - none of your synthesised rubbish for Bauhaus! Buy it & savour the delights of songs such as Double Dare (a real killer riff), Stigmata Martyr (exquisitely scary), Nerves (builds up to a terrifying finale) & In The Flat Field (truly amazing). Bauhaus are more than goth - they are experimental art rock, & anyone missing them is missing out. Buy it & savour it.
