Formed from the ashes of The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission UK threw a bright paisley scarf around goth music in the 1980s, infusing goth’s lacquered darkness with arena-sized guitar riffs and melodramatic flourish. Critics slagged ’em as bombastic, but their epic escapist music packed stadiums in Europe and made them cult idols among the black-eyeliner set stateside.
The advent of the 1990s saw The Mission’s grandiose, swoonily-romantic rock epics fall out of favor, but judging from their set earlier this week, it was the world’s loss. The band thundered into the Showbox Sunday night as though they’d never fallen off the radar, bashing out a spirited set that weighed heavily on old classics while showcasing some great new material in the bargain.
Frontman Wayne Hussey has taken several incarnations of The Mission UK on the road over the last decade, but this particular tour reunited Hussey with original members Simon Hinkler and Craig Adams for the first time in over twenty years. Hinkler’s guitar textures and Adams’ restless pulse of a bass always contributed immeasurably to the band’s sound, and it was great to hear them back in full flower. Hussey, meantime, sang old and new tracks alike with a drama-drenched baritone reassuringly untouched by time, while new drummer Sam Kelly kept the momentum up with a pile-driving backbeat.
At their heart, The Mission UK have always been a melodramatic, exotic version of a Big Rock Band, so it was no surprise that covers of classic rock tracks like Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” and Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” sat comfortably beside Mission anthems like “Deliverance” and “Tower of Strength.” They may not be filling arenas like they used to, but The Mission UK still played it like they meant it, and a sampling of tracks from their recent release, The Brightest Light, showed that they’re still wedding bluster, energy, and atmosphere famously.
The headliners, as it turns out, weren’t the only recently-reunited band playing the Showbox that night. After almost a decade apart, Seattle power trio Truly have been gigging again with frequency over the last year or so, and they opened the evening with a solid set of tracks mostly cherry-picked from their underrated full-length records, Fast Stories from Kid Coma and Feeling You Up. Their melange of psychedelia, narcotic Jim Morrison imagery, and grunge-era stomp sounds more pulverizing and forward-thinking than ever today, and contrasted with the headliners nicely.
