GOLD IS THE METAL

This is really a collection of odds and ends and incomplete bits and bobs that didn't fit elsewhere at he time. It leads to an extremely disjointed Coil recording which is surprising, considering how meticulous they were. This is not the third proper Coil album but a conglomeration of small artefacts and curios which really should just have been binned outright.

Frantic Moroccan horns introduces 'Gold is the Metal' with a scatterbrained approach and is probably the best tune on this recording. 'Paradisiac' has a more 'Coil' feel with dirty deep horn and sparse percussion - but I can't help feeling that it's an out-take from something far more hard hitting from 1987. 'Thump' has a sweaty far eastern theme going on , unfortunately it sounds very 1988 and hopelessly dated due to the keyboards used. At least there's one or two moments of decent bass sounds.

'For us they Will' is a small step up, with a reedy vocal performance by John Balance which is set around a Thai boxing match. Slapped drums and megaphone styled vocals are pretty much all you get here.. Rubbish tinny drum machines and thoroughly embarrassing homo erotic vocals really downgrade this album.

'Boy in a Suitcase' is the only Coil song in which Peter Christopherson took lead vocals. And no wonder... they're bloody awful, being stringy, week and whiney from beginning to end. Forget about the next track too - 'Golden Hole' is a crumby demo version of the far superior track that appears on the mighty 'Horse Rotorvator'. 'Cardinal Points' used to be my favourite tune on this album, but during the last 20 years it's dated horribly with its asinine 80's keyboards and early sampling techniques involving orchestral strings. Baah!, I thought this was going to be better than what I'm hearing right now after a five year break. But no. Its rubbish in all honesty.

'Red Slur' is another poor out-take from the far superior version that appears on 'Horse Rotorvator' Weak, feeble and uninspired.

'Metal in the Head' is a tune based on the fact that Shostakovich composed music he claimed to hear in his head after having splinters of shrapnel lodged in his brain after the First World War. You'd think that this was a great foundation for a tune, however it's instantly forgettable with Nikola Tesla radio wave sounds taking precedence but not actually doing anything. Static radio defined. Even the 'Hellraiser' original soundtrack is ruined halfway through with squawky guitars and lack-lustre drums. 'The Wheal' is yet another inferior demo recording of something that sprouts wings and flies with the grace of a butterfly in it's perfect form in 'The First Five Minutes After Death' on 'Horse Rotorvator'

Basically Gold is the Metal is a recording which makes you realise what a triumphant masterpiece 'Horse Rotorvator' really was. This album, however, is utterly pointless and completely superfluous. Definitely one for fans only.

Although technically GOLD IS THE METAL WITH THE BROADEST SHOULDERS is the 3rd studio release by the highly experimental electronic band COIL, it is in fact a compilation of outtakes and demos from the sessions that generated "Scatology," "Horse Rotorvator" and the "Hellraiser Soundtrack." Despite not being a "real" album I find it hangs together quite well and I also find these kind of leftovers packages by COIL to be amongst my favorite releases. The "Unnatural History" series (I, II & III) are packed full of COIL's unique take on transmogrifying simple jingles into the most ominous and dread laden musical pieces. Brooding melancholy is seeping out of every note on this one accented by COIL's uncanny talent for sewing together samples of music, sound effects and occasional diologue.

Despite the compilation label, GOLD is the first album that takes on their sound that would become their signature demented take on industrial, dark wave and electronic composition. These kind of tracks were on the previous albums but starting here they moved on from the danceable vocal tracks that sounded a little too much like Depeche Mode or New Order at times. I like to think of COIL's music as a sort of demented musical collages since they usually take a sample of something or create their own riff of some sort and then pile on heaps of different sound efffects and strange time signatures. The first track "Last Rites Of Spring" actually samples Stravinsky so it is the perfect example as to how they can obscure the originating source. For a bunch of disjointed tracks, I think that they threw it all together in an interesting way and the diverse range of sounds keeps the album exciting. For me there are no bad or throwaway tracks.