Coil – Gold Is The Metal (With The Broadest Shoulders)

Since there is an awful review of this album I feel compelled to give a quality review of it. This was the first coil album I picked up at the tender age of 17. It was at the time the scariest sounding music I had heard. I have wondered why some of these tracks didn't make it to HR, considering they were superior, there is nothing on HR that compares to Cardinal Points in my opinion, and it would have easily fit in there, as well as "At the Heart of it All" did on "Scatology". I heard this years before I heard HR, and honestly never cared for HR as much as I did this, or Scatology (which is easily the better of the 2 first albums), if you feel the same, this is a release worth checking out. I imagine if you were a huge fan of HR, it's only going to remind you of it, since so many samples and recording sessions sound similar on HR. There are weak tracks though, Broken Wheel's dialogue pretty much ruins the interesting parts of it for being so cheesy and goofy, ruining an otherwise unique sounding track, Boy in a Suitcase ends up sounding too much like a generic TG/Psychic TV track, but it evolves into Golden Hole, which is classic scary and noisy Coil, ... Of Free Enterprise would feel unnecessary if it didn't slowly evolve into Aqua Regalia, which is menacing and incredible, so even most of the weaker tracks bleed into good tracks. Looking at their early discography, this sits well in the realm of the Tainted Love Single/Scatology era, saying this is not a necessary listen is like saying the Tainted Love single isn't as well. If you love early scary, menacing, and moody Coil, you will likely love this. They only sounded like this for a short time, by the time LSD came along, they had changed once more, never really venturing back into this sound. In case it didn't already come across, I will go as far as to say this is, at least for me, this is a superior listen to Horse Rotorvator, takes away many things I didn't care for, and replaces them with scary and menacing instrumental tracks, which is honestly what I liked about Coil in this era anyways.

This album is not my favorite of Coil albums but anyway one of the greatest albums ever :)

Horse Rotorvator demos. Mostly irrelevant in the shadow of Coil's surrounding work, it's worth a listen through. A couple tracks are even keepers: Cardinal Points and Hellraiser.