Alongside Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle were pioneers in industrial rhythm; techno-primitivists before technology opened the floodgates. Genesis P. Orridge transposed post-punk trance to acid dance (as Psychic TV/Jack The Tab) and now it's the turn of Coil, formed by Gristle/PTV founder Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and fellow PTV member John Balance. Coil has been programming trance repititions and emotion-fed pulsebeats since 1983, but never as seductively, or accesibly. Love's Secret Domain is a masterful post-house equation, a cornucopia of arcane, sensory impulses, ecstatic synthetics and uncanny diversions that engineer a spartan, but opulent, energy. Some pointers: "Windowpane" is oceanic exotica to match 808 State; "Teenage Lightning" and the title track obey the same alluring Euromantic formula as Yello/Kraftwerk; "The Snow" suggests an underground, arcane Enigma; "Dark River" and "Where Even The Darkness Is Something To See" a club-dwelling Jon Hassell. Poetess Annie Anxiety Bandez turns "Things Happen" into a slippery, red-light cabaret; Marc Almond sings "Titan Arch," where dance ritual melts into cinematic sound'n'vision, of the Kenneth Anger/Derek Jarman variety. Coil ensures that dance's futuristic potential, as Acid House originally promised, is (un)safe in their hands. - Martin Aston, CMJ

1991's LSD is commonly referred to as Coil's House record. Other styles are featured, but the album as a whole leaves no doubt that Coil had left their industrial days a little further behind. LSD is consistently cited by fans as Coil's "best" album, and with good reason. It is very dancy with moments of trance, house, goth ("Titan Arch"), classical guitars, live drums, electronics and guest vocals by Marc Almond (ex-Soft Cell, on the aforementioned "Titan Arch"), and Annie Anxiety (the drunken "Things Happen"). Although it's a lighter effort than earlier albums, this is more a reflection of the previous albums' heavyness rather than LSD's character; it's still an amazingly heavy album. Regardless of personal opinions in the vinyl-vs.-CD debate, this is an album you'll want to own on CD, as it has four extra songs (including the magnificent digeridoo-drenched "Where Even Darkness Is Something To See") and longer versions of songs, shorter on the LP and cassette versions. This is a headphone record, and the one of the first to extensively feature "sidereal sound" (look up sidereal in a dictionary, for answers w/r/t sidereal objects.) The title track quotes from William Blake's "The Sick Rose"; Blake is another poet that Balance has made reference to in the past. At one point, LSD was released through Wax Trax! in the U.S., which may help explain it's popularity (compared to other Coil albums,) in the U.S. The cover features another fantastic Steven Stapleton painting. - Dave Piniella

"LSD" literally changed my life, I'd never heard anything quite like it prior and since. The diversity and care put into this album is remarkable. From the bizarre sample assault of "Disco Hospital" to the swirling sounds and vocoded vox of "Teenage Lightning" to the stream of conscious vocal of "Things Happen" to the gentle beat of "The Snow" to the beautiful ambience of "Dark River" and "Chaostrophy" to the driving bass line of "Windowpane" to the wonderful Marc Almond vocal of "Titan Arch" to the vocal groove of "Love's Secret Domain" ... you really must *hear* this album in order to understand, the sound just can't be put into words. Everything is perfect, the effects, the lyrics, the vocals, the programming, the instrumentation (includes orchestral arrangements, spanish guitars, live drums, etc). I consider this album an extension of Coil's previous albums ... sort of a "90's update" to the technique and sound, but quite unlike the recent "drone" work of "Time Machines" and "Moon's Milk". Also, the artwork (wood painting by Steven Stapleton) is brilliant ... a perfect compliment to the lyrics and music. Unfortunately, "Love's Secret Domain" is no longer in print and has become rather difficult to find ... but be sure to keep an eye out for it in the used bins (note - the cd has several bonus tracks that the cassette doesn't). It's a must have album. There were also 2 must have singles from the album, "The Snow" and "Windowpane" and the "Stolen & Contaminated Songs" compilation also has several alternate versions of songs found on "Love's Secret Domain". - Mark Weddle

You've either got it or you've heard about it. Maybe you downloaded all the tracks online, paid tons on an auction or found it kicking around used or some cut out bin. Any way you slice it, this album cannot be ignored. Now, ten years to the month after its original release, one of my favorite albums of all time is back in print. (With a few minor adjustments of course,...) The cover is the first difference I see: the front shows a little bit more of the legendary painting Steven Stapleton did on his outhouse, including his signature down at the bottom right corner, never before seen. The back is amazingly more legible than the original release - which simply blew up a bit of the cover and used gold text - black background, gold text and a previously unissued image. The back of the booklet is graced by the back photograph of the LP edition, but open the booklet up and sadly, there are no lyrics included this time around. The most noticable musical difference is about four seconds missing from the opening chopped up sampling bit, but those sounds do get repeated over a few cycles however,... Enough of the nitpicking! The recordings contained were completed in 1990, pulled from over two years of studio work, which is quite noticable. Back then, electronic musicians didn't have anywhere near as much software, Coil had to do much of this by hand. This is observed right from the opening seconds where a cut-up mishmosh of samples were tossed into a bucket and taped back together. Over the course of an hour, the group pummels the listener with whacked-out stereo separation, mind-bending low-end frequencies and ghostly voices which move in three dimensions around the room -without- the aid of a 5-point surround system! It's genre-defying, electronic based with dabbles of jazz, techno, with flamenco guitars and orchestral arrangements. Guests on this record include vocal contributions from Little Annie Anxiety Bandez, Marc Almond and Rose McDowell, as well as Charles Hayward on drums, and Mike McEvoy's trippy 'ecstatic keyboards' on "The Snow". While songs like "Windowpane" and "Love's Secret Domain" are instantaneously catchy favorites, tracks like "Further Back and Faster" are so amazingly ahead of their time in terms of sound and structure. The multiple layers, samples and sections must have taken many late nights in the studio, the result is a mindfuck which has taken many listens to truly get. People accuse this record of being a techno record, but in actuality, "The Snow" is really the only fast-paced techno dancefloor anthem, and not a bad one indeed with incredible playing, sampling and subliminal vocal manipulations. The record is multi-climactic, and builds a couple times before the end, with the calm and disturbing "Titan Arch" featuring Marc Almond's guest vocals over a chilly throb, "Chaostrophy" where an orchestra fights for center stage with a barrage of white noise, the explosive flamenco guitars of "Lorca Not Orca" into the finale, the title track, snaking lines from William Blake and Roy Orbison. - Jon Whitney, Brainwashed