Love Like Blood have been around the Goth scene for over 10 years. This is their latest release after 4 years, and it is a tribute to four periods of this scene, divided in 5 years, more or less.

There are 15 covers and one track of their own. LLB selected those songs based on both history and influences, trying to recreate the evolution from the goth rock of Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy, to the gothic metal of Paradise Lost, Tiamat and Type O Negative. Judging from the tracklist you may realize the difficulty of this task, since a big part of the elite of the darkwave music is there.

To tell you the truth I find covers hard to like, in fact the ones I like can be counted on the fingers of my right hand. Or the left if you like, it's simply a matter of choice. And the idea of seeing some of the biggest bands in this scene being covered by a single band, even an experienced one seemed a bit frightening at the beginning.

I have to admit I really liked some of the covers, and I wish the original Manson sounded like in the cover, I still consider him to be as gothic as limp biscuit are german power metal.

LLB have succeeded in recreating goth rock songs up to a degree, they fail though in my opinion at songs where brutal vocals and guitars are used. True Belief and Whatever That Hurts are a fine example of such songs with a feeling impossible to capture in a slower, more electronic cover, since all songs are performed in a similar goth rock way.

This is an interesting collection of covers for anyone into the goth scene and certainly more interesting than most of the metal covers that have been released in the past.