Formed from the ashes of Bauhaus, Love And Rockets took their inspiration not from former Goth front man Peter Murphy, but from the psychedelic visions of Pink Floyd main man Syd Barrett. Arriving, as they did, in the mid-1980s, Love And Rockets were able to employ contemporary technology and studio wizardry to update the original concept, and this debut album found them at their creative zenith, conjuring strange sounds--just listen to the scratchy, rasping solo that shatters the flow of the opening track "If There's A Heaven Above"--with an unmistakably English vibe. The time probably wasn't right for their particular brand of spaced-out rock but, in retrospect, Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven comes across not as a simple act of homage, but as a genuinely new hybrid, informed by an awareness of soul, pop, prog-rock (and yes, Goth), pre-dating the genre-mixing that became so common in the decade that followed. Making this re-issue even more appealing is the inclusion of four UK single mixes, and a brace of transatlantic mixes that would otherwise take months to track down in the world's rare record emporiums. --Johnny Black