Bauhaus: Gone Away Again

Album: Go Away White
Artist: Bauhaus
Genre: Gothic Rock
Year: 2008
Label: Bauhaus Music

So, somehow in the midst of my gloomy sleep deprived ravings, I managed to completely miss the Bauhaus releasing a new album in March of 2008. There must have been absolutely no fanfare about the release because I just found out about it less than a month ago. What the hell, guys? I know you’re Gothic Rock legends from beyond the void but the least you could have done was tell me! Maybe it was just Seattle because I asked a friend of mine if she’d heard about Go Away White and she was just as shocked as I was. She also said she was excited. So was I.

The Bauhaus, for those of you not living with the bats in the cave, were the original Gothic Rock band. They were the first to combine dark atmospheric rock with horror movie lyrics to create the gloomy sound that would later be adopted by dozens of other bands. If you want to argue this point, saying something to the effect of “no, Joy Division and Siouxsie and The Banshees came first” you’d be right, but you’re still wrong. Yes those groups (barely) preceded Bauhaus, but they were Post-Punk bands and could be termed “Proto-Goth” but that just sounds silly. Joy Division were gloomier than Bauhaus any day of the week, but with them it was utterly serious, no humor or camp to take the edge off. And Siouxsie was a punk, there’s no getting around this. For god’s sake she was a Sex Pistols groupie before she did anything of musical importance and even then it took her time to escape the three-chord confines before she started to develop her own spooky sounds. But I’m off topic.

The Bauhaus re-united in 2005 to tour and soak up some of the glory that had been withheld from them the first time around. It must be nice to see history vindicate your music, proving that you were doing something of integrity and originality way back when everyone else thought you were cracked. On the other hand, it must be disturbing to look back through time and see all the bands that have come and gone, trying to ride your vampire cape tails all the way back to the coffin you crawled out of. Anyway, the Bauhaus returned to a world that welcomed them back with open arms. They toured with Nine Inch Nails and by themselves and took on such venues as Coachella Music Festival before returning to the studio for the first time in over twenty years to record Go Away White, the first album they’ve ever released without a significant amount of black on the cover. In fact, it’s completely white, with an angel seeming to fade away into the cover, which is, of course, an artistic representation of the title.

I’ve managed to get this far and not even mention the music, so lets talk about that. Go Away White stands up well in comparison to the Bauhaus small discography of twenty years prior, which is incredibly impressive for a band to do, return like this and create work that’s still relevant. Some bands spend years creating crap album after crap album, trying to regain their former glory. But Bauhaus aren’t trying to recapture their former glory with this album, rather, they’re creating something new that remains strictly Bauhaus to its dark core. And in that they have succeeded. You won’t find any “Dark Entries” on this album, try as you might to find them, but that’s OK, because we have “International Bulletproof Talent” with its catchy chorus and attention grabbing guitar riffs. We also have the haunting “The Dog’s A Vapor” which is as chilling as “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” or “Hollow Hills” ever were. It may be even creepier then either of those takes if that’s possible to believe, as Peter Murphy just takes off on this track, his voice echoing throughout the piece, infiltrating every nook and cranny of your poor abused psyche. It’s like that moment in a horror movie where the creature is revealed and one of the cast is too scared to run away and is disemboweled because of their lack of initiative.

Peter Murphy’s Bowie-esque vocals are at the center of this album, the rest of the band flitting about him like bats in the night. David J and Daniel Ash are as talented as ever, both of the weaving seamless darkness over Kevin Haskins post-punky drumming. This could have been a new beginning for the Bauhaus but instead it’s the end, the final note of the last song is that last you’ll hear of the Bauhaus as they’ve disbanded, for the last time. Why? Who knows, these things happen. And they’re not Killing Joke so don’t get your hopes up for another reunion. But ultimately, it’ll be OK. We still have In The Flat Field and Mask, and now we have Go Away White as well. While you may never see the Bauhaus live again, you can celebrate their death, so to speak.