Since it arrived on Saturday morning Torment & Toreros has been monopolising my CD player, and I can now begin to appreciate why you're so passionate about it, Martin. It's fast approaching masterpiece status in my estimations now.
It had been over 20 years since I had heard Torment & Toreros, and back in the day I only liked about half of it at most, despite being a huge Marc Almond/Soft Cell fan at the time. I was just too immature and artistically uneducated to understand where Marc was coming from, particularly sonically. Many songs just seemed to drone on, aimless and minimalist. Now those same songs sound superb and are among my favourites. And the minimalism is a masterclass in nuance and understatement.
And how on earth did 'Torment' leave me underwhelmed? Co-written by Steve Severin, it's a perfect merging and distillation of Almond and The Banshees at their best.
Two discs of this marvellous music for £11.99 - maybe the prices paid for it on ebay over the last few years weren't silly money after all.
