Whenever someone asks me to pick the ten discs I would take with me to a desert island there are a couple of albums that make it on to the list without fail. One of those automatic picks is Switchblade Symphony’s Serpentine Gallery. Serpentine Gallery arrived at a time in the 90s when goth music had grown terribly stagnant; you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a band who was aping either Sisters of Mercy or Fields of the Nephilim. Switchblade Symphony were having none of that. With their dazzling violet debut, Tina Root and Susan Wallace created a fairytale world of warped childhood with nothing more than vocals, synths, guitar, and the trip-hop touches that would become the band’s trademark. Their sound was all-encompassing, dreamlike, menacing, bittersweet, and gone altogether too soon. There was nothing like it at the time, and to be honest, there’s still nothing that compares. If you haven’t yet gotten hold of this album there isn’t a better time than the present, as it has recently been re-issued with a bonus disc of fantastic rarities including the much-sought-after Scrapbook EP.

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