Seldom in the history of music has a band shunned the acceptable parameters and guidelines as much as UK dark rock legends Sisters Of Mercy.
After releasing three successful albums - the last of which, Vision Thing, coming out in 1990 - Sisters Of Mercy made a stance against their record company and the industry in general by refusing to record any more music for exploitation.
While this would sound the death knoll for most bands, Sisters Of Mercy have continued on their way since, recently celebrating their 40th anniversary with no signs of slowing down!
The band continues to write new music, with half of their live set list comprising new and unreleased music, and judging by the response to their upcoming shows on this side of the world fans are just as keen as ever to capture the spectacle that ultimately follows Sisters Of Mercy.
HEAVY caught up with guitarist Ben Christo to find out what to expect.
"It will be a good show, in terms of mix of classics and new songs. It will be the result of a years worth of efforts - since February we have been working on material - and also a lot of touring and festivals, so it's the culmination of 2022's work that we've done together across the course of some shows."
We press Christo to describe a typical Sisters Of Mercy live show - assuming there is such a thing.
"We tend to have... there's definitely a sense of narrative progression. We start the show and there's definitely hints of slowly building tension and excitement, so to begin the show is quite still in the sense of foreboding but as the show escalates we become more animated and the lights do their thing too. I think rather than coming out and it being intense straight away, there's a gradual climb throughout the set which feels quite natural. We haven't even planned it, it just seems to happen organically. Once we realised that was what was developing we leaned into it, so that's a nice combination of something where there is a sense of theatricality and narrative."
In the full interview, Ben talks more about what to expect, the light show and how it enhances the live performance, playing new songs when people haven't had a chance to hear them on record, how that goes over, his time in the band, his audition and how he approached it, having so much unreleased material and more.