The Mission UK Albums (17)
'The First Chapter: Live'
Release Date 2/24/2009
Tracks 14
Label Anagram Gothic
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What The Critics Say
There were a lot worse ways of spending an evening than standing amidst a sea of black clad acolytes, marveling as the Mission reimagine their entire classic back catalog, one album at a time, across a delirious series of shows at the Shepherds Bush Empire, London, in February and March 2008. And there are a lot worse ways of remembering the magic than picking up four CDs that recapture each evening with such electrifying clarity that, if you close your eyes, you're there again, standing astonished as the years peel back, the energy builds, and even Wayne Hussey seems to shed a couple of decades, to return as the Rock God he once was. The First Chapter was never so much an album as a gathering of singles, B-sides, and odds and ends recorded during the months before the Mish truly got their career off the ground. But it was a cohesive set regardless, and the first disc in the live series follows it flawlessly, the songs all as fresh as they used to be, and still pounding out the heartstopping highlights that so hallmarked the band as something special. "Naked and Savage," "Wake (RSVP)," and "Garden of Delight" are still as spellbinding as ever, and the mash of covers that were one of the band's lesser sung fortes are excellent, too -- step this way for one of the best ever versions of "Tomorrow Never Knows," a scintillating "Like a Hurricane," and a breathless "Dancing Barefoot." Say what you like about this band, but they had great taste in music! Hussey's own liner notes declare that these four nights were "something I will never forget...a highlight of my 22 years with the Mission." The rest of us just say "22 years?" It all feels like yesterday. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'God's Own Medicine: Live'
Release Date 2/24/2009
Tracks 15
Label Anagram Gothic
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What The Critics Say
By the time of their second album (if one considers the compilation stop-gap The First Chapter to be their first), the Mission had truly hit the ground running. Bigger than the Sisters of Mercy had ever been, and more commercial, too, the band simply churned out the hits and, as the years passed and the tour dates mounted up, it was easy to believe that Wayne Hussey must have been getting just a little sick of playing the same songs every night. It doesn't show. Recorded on the second of the Mission's four nights in London in February and March 2008, God's Own Medicine: Live recounts the band's breakthrough masterpiece track by track, note for note, inflection for inflection, and it sounds terrific. Better than that, in fact, as the sold-out audience merges its vocals with the band and, from the moment the opening "Wasteland" kicks in, you know this is not a simple live album you're listening to. It's an event, a moment in history that transcends whatever you might ordinarily think of the Mission, and restates their claim to have ranked among the essential acts of the '80s. Four nights, four albums replayed in their entirety, with period B-sides and oddities thrown in at the end. It could have become as cynical an exercise as the critics declared some of the band's later recordings were. But this is the Mission at their best, and Wayne Hussey at his most captivating and, if you don't believe it, listen to the roar that welcomes "Severina" into view. Unbelievable. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'Children: Live'
Release Date 2/24/2009
Tracks 15
Label Anagram Gothic
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The third of four great Mission albums, replayed in full over the third of four nights in London in early 2008 -- and, astonishingly, sounding even better than you remember it used to. The Mission, after all, were such a child of the '80s that it is too easy to simply file their memory away alongside the other childish pastimes you long ago outgrew. But as the opening, Led Zeppelin-esque chords of "Beyond the Pale" thump in over the roar of a solidly sold-out audience, it's as if time hasn't so much fallen away as not even passed by in the first place. Welcome to the 1988 show, indeed. Children, of course, was the album where the Mish first started to seriously lose people, a record that seemed to spend so much time investigating producer John Paul Jones' back catalog that it forgot to look at the band's own. But with guitarist Simon Hinkler chiming out the riffs that came so easily to him back then, and Wayne Hussey sounding more dramatically earnest than he has in years, Children simply exploded off the stage, and now it treats your stereo to more of the same, a soaring, punchdrunk exercise in unbridled ambition, incendiary melody, and who even cares what the critics are going to say? This is what the Mission were, and we bless them for every note of it. Yes, even the cover of Aerosmith's "Dream On" -- which, say it loud, now sounds more like a classic Mission song than it ever was a Steven Tyler chestbeater. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'Carved in Sand: London Shepherd's Bush Empire 2008'
Release Date 2/24/2009
Tracks 15
Label Anagram Gothic
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Tonight -- the fourth and final night of the Mission's marathon dip into the past, replaying one entire classic album per night -- it's Carved in Sand, their last truly great album but also the first to show the signs of wear and tear that reduced the band to a pale joke for much of the 1990s and beyond. Probably half of Carved in Sand would not have passed muster as B-sides in the past, and the fact that the original album was twinned with a second disc of outtakes only upped the odds against it ever standing proud alongside Children and God's Own Medicine. But "Butterfly on a Wheel" was a beauty, "Hands Across the Ocean" a triumph, and even a dodgy cover of the Kinks' "Mr. Pleasant" had its good points. All of which renders the album's live incarnation all the more astounding, as it pointedly refuses to acknowledge its own failings and emerges as powerful, and as essential, as any of the discs that precede it in this series. This same night, incidentally, was also filmed for DVD release and, again, while grumpy purists might have preferred to see The First Chapter given such deluxe treatment, it's hard to be disappointed by the decision -- especially as it all wraps up with a five-song sequence that dives back into the past to reconnect with "Deliverance," "Like a Child Again," "Serpent's Kiss," "Wasteland" -- and, indeed, "Mr. Pleasant"! Those same malcontents will probably look at this series and choose carefully between the four discs on offer. They would be wrong to do so. All four are superlative; all four are essential. And, like the Mission themselves, all four are timeless. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'Aural Delight'
Release Date 11/26/2002
Tracks 12
Label Playground Records
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
There is a happy land where the Mission never went off the boil, where the desperate maneuverings of Masque and Neverland never sent them spiraling away from what they did best, and where the upheavals and evils of the past ten years never once impacted the gorgeous gleam of post-Zep atmosphere and pre-Hollywood Tolkien-esque fantasy that was the hallmark of their best (first two) albums. It is a land that has been on regular display on-stage since the band's late-'90s reformation, but Aura, a U.K. release in 2001 that finally reached America 12 months later, was its first studio manifestation -- and what a joy it is. With the spirit of "Serpent's Kiss" playing around its intro guitars, and an anthemic quality that cannot be ignored, the opening "Evangeline" insists from the outset that the reborn Mission are not here to simply make up the numbers. True, its S&M theme isn't exactly the most inspired lyric Wayne Hussey has ever come up with (the title rhymes with "whiplash queen" -- ouch), but ignore the words and the music washes you clean of every year that's elapsed since the golden age of "Severina," "Wasteland," and "Garden of Delight." Neither is it a one-off. Across 14 tracks (an untitled ballad is secreted at the end), Aura sounds like the greatest-hits album that never was, a succession of brilliantly conceived ghosts that reassemble all the Mission's proudest moments, then fashion something dynamically new and pure from them. True, "Cocoon" does glance in the direction of the Cure for its bassline, and "(Slave To) Love" wallows in that same discomfortingly sexually implicit trough as Masque's "Heaven Sends You." But who else than the Mission could even wonder what would happen if you conjoined Radiohead and Uriah Heep ("In Denial")? Who but they could conjure something so undeniably sappy, but achingly pristine as "Dragonfly"? And who but they would dare marry a mock-Morrissey lyric to a proto-Prodigy rhythm, and then cut it off after little more than a minute ("To Die By Your Hand")? From start to finish, it's the Mission back at the starting post, and straining to start the sprint. And, if Aura truly is the rebirth it appears to be, this time they might complete it. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Not only was it a surprise to see the Mission back on the road in 1999, it was a real shock to see them releasing new and reworked material. For his next trick, Wayne Hussey proves his new staying power with a document of 1999's Resurrection tour. A mostly live album, Ever After proves that the Mission were no hacks when it came to performances. Their power on this disc is obvious at the outset with the "rock god" chord that takes you out of the intro and into a hyped-up version of "Beyond the Pale." Unfortunately for this collection, which musically is the best the Mission have sounded in a decade, the quality of the mix is hard to get through. It sounds muddy, and there is far too much background noise. All faults aside, of which there are but few, this live collection is well worth the buy. The band swaggers through the best of the past, with tracks like "Sacrilege" and "Deliverance" maintaining their original power. Tacked on at the end is a studio cover of the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses," which is just as heavy and rocking as the rest of the album. Mission fans will not want to miss this. ~ Chris True, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
A slight return to form for the Mission, Blue suffers from being too little, too late. The greater part of their fan base had dissolved in the wake of the pedestrian Masque, and goth rock itself had mutated into the more metal-influenced stylings of bands such as Type O Negative. Although the songwriting is a step up from the previous two albums, the sound is still hopelessly dated. Songs like "Drown In Blue" and "Dying Room" might please the diehard Mission fans, but it's unlikely the band will make any new fans with this record. ~ Jim Harper, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After attempting to update the band's sound with 1991's Masque, the Mission abandoned some of the technological influences of that album and concentrated on a more guitar-based sound. However, the same shortcomings continued to appear. In the mid-'80s Hussey and his crew were accused of copying Led Zeppelin, and Neverland provides more ammunition for the band's critics. "Sway" continues their flirtation with Middle Eastern music -- ultimately derived from Zeppelin's "Kashmir" -- while "Celebration" is a pale copy of the earlier band's "Celebration Day." At times the album drips with cloying sentimentality, with "Cry Like a Baby" and "Swim With the Dolphins" being particularly hard to swallow. All in all, Neverland comes across as a second-rate version of the Mission's first two albums, making it almost entirely pointless. ~ Jim Harper, All Music Guide
