These Immortal Souls

This stunning release was the debut EP by the short-lived These Immortal Souls, who produced just two albums at the end of the '80s. The band was formed in 1987 by singer/guitarist Rowland Howard, who had been a key player in the greatest post-punk phenomenon of the '80s, the Birthday Party and later the Bad Seeds. With bassist Harry Howard and the late drummer Epic Soundtracks, the three left Simon Bonney's Crime & the City Solution and were joined by keyboard player Genevieve McGuckin. Together they created some of the most sustaining and gorgeous music to come out of the post-Birthday Party canon. Collectively, the quartet's combined talents made a unique urban blues music where despair and darkness collide with humor, soaring, epic tales of lost love driven by a loose, playful atmosphere -- a music loaded with danger. Howard's ragged guitar carried traces from the Birthday Party's terrifying and inspired noise, and while the EP is astonishing, it is merely a hint of what was to come the following year in the album Get Lost (Don't Lie). "Marry Me (Lie! Lie!) and an early, looser version of "Blood and Sand, She Said" are both tracks from the album, but this EP features a rendition of "Open up and Bleed" which is so devastating as to justify seeking the 12" out. Truly remarkable and shamefully overlooked, it's fair to say that These Immortal Souls belong on the top shelf of any complete post-punk collection, along with the Bad Seeds, Crime & the City Solution, and the Gun Club. ~ Skip Jansen, All Music Guide