On July 15th, 1985, The Damned, 9 years into their existence had The Captain depart for a solo career, and guitarist Brian James leave to join the supergroup The Lords of The New Church.
At this point, Punk was nearly a decade old, and Goth seemed to be the new trend. Thus, Dave Vanian and Co seemed to have shed the harshness their punk rock roots—filling the void with the band’s most Gothic period (finally matching the guise of Vanian, their vampiric front-man) with the release of their sixth studio album Phantasmagoria—one of the band’s most popular albums to this day.
The album’s signature romantic sound is channeled the creepy and almost Scream ing Lord Sutch like track “Grimly Fiendish”:
Along with the haunting ballad “Shadow of Love”:
and the Gothic reverie of “Is It A Dream?”
The cover art of Phantamagoria, was taken by photographer Bob Carlos Clarke. The cover model is Susie Bick, who is married to Nick Cave.
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