Producers: Andrew Eldritch, Larry Alexander, Jim Steinman.

Engineers: Larry Alexander, Roy Neave, Andrew Eldritch.

While the goth scene in England was picking up commercial steam in the mid-'80s, the Sisters of Mercy may have seemed quiet, but they roared back with 1987's Floodland. Opening with the driving two-part hymn "Dominion/Mother Russia," Sisters leader Andrew Eldritch (along with bassist Patricia Morrison) creates a black soundscape that is majestic and vast. While the earlier Sisters releases were noisy, sometimes harsh affairs, Floodland is filled with lush production (thanks to Meat Loaf writer/producer Jim Steinman and the New York Choral Society) and lyric imagery that is both scary and glorious. The slower tracks, like "Flood" and "1959," are some of the best ethereal sounds goth has to offer, and the downright regal "This Corrosion" is one of the best songs of the genre. A definite milestone. ~ Chris True

Long before Trent Reznor brought his brand of densely textured, hard-hitting Goth rock to the world, The Sisters Of Mercy were creating the mould with albums such as FLOODLAND. Here, front man Andrew Eldritch and company mix styles with a dark and gloomy palette. Songs are built with punishing and/or danceable drum machine tracks, guitars that alternately moan and crash, touches of '80s keyboards, and Eldritch's deeply resonant, undertaker voice, for a sound that made the Sisters one of the leading lights of the '80s Goth movement.

"Dominion/Mother Russia," the album's opener, presages industrial goth with its epic, thunderous rhythm track, wiry guitar lines and a chorus that treads that fine line between dance pop and death metal. Especially notable here is the inclusion of the band's best known single "This Corrosion," a multi-layered goth-pop gem held together by a eerie back-up choir and a driving dance beat. Though the stylistic focus of the album varies from the chilling piano balladry of "1959," to the battering ram, chamber-of-horrors hypnosis of "Lucretia My Reflection," FLOODLAND is probably the band's most cohesive and accessible album.