What a fucking cool album cover. It’s like an emblem you’d see emblazoned on the front gate of Dracula’s castle. The Black Album is a certain curiosity in The Damned’s discography, as the group are almost entirely known for their earlier simple “brat punk” albums, but they broke out of that stereotype more and more as their career went on, and The Black Album is their first major stride.

The Gothic aesthetic found its way into the darkness of post-punk around the same time as The Black Album was recorded, and being the excitable youths they are The Damned latched onto this cool new movement. The end result is an album that’s actually quite quirky and inventive rather than a derivative latecomer. The original first disc consists of primarily punk rock songs that are merely informed by Gothic music. Tracks will begin with a dark bass-y thump or deep keyboard interlude but will betray this opening to break into more traditional punk rock, as it’s still the style The Damned know how to write songs in.

But somehow the group create a progression and actually evolve in-album to a full Gothic rock outfit on the second disc, which is a general improvement. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” should be a Halloween party-approved classic, and the finale song “Curtain Call” is The Damned’s own “Youth of America,” only sacrificing surf rock for chaos—the group even utilize field recordings! Who could resist the siren call of post-punk? If it weren’t for the fact “Curtain Call” ends pretty weakly, it’d be a lost gem of its movement. But it’s close enough, and so is The Black Album in general.