Crackle: Best of Bauhaus

'Bauhaus are the founding fathers of goth rock, creating a minimalistic, overbearingly gloomy style of post-punk rock driven by jagged guitar chords and cold, distant synthesizers. Throughout their brief career, the band explored all the variations on their bleak musical ideas, adding elements of glam rock, experimental electronic rock, funk, and heavy metal. While their following has never expanded beyond a cult, they kept their cult alive well into the '90s, a full decade after they disbanded . . . To celebrate their twentieth anniversary, Bauhaus reunited for a tour and released the Crackle compilation in the U.S. The band initially claimed that Crackle was an American edition of 1979-1983: Vol. 2, which was never released in the U.S., but less than half of the songs appear on both collections. Which means, of course, that Crackle shouldn't be viewed as a compilation for collectors - instead, it's an excellent overview of the group's brief career, containing all of their essential songs, from "In the Flat Field" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to "Ziggy Stardust" and "Burning from the Inside."' - Stephen Thomas Erlewine / All Music Guide