Garlands by Cocteau Twins

Garlands, the debut album from Grangemouth's Cocteau Twins, came out on 4AD in 1982, and it's a darker, colder thing than the title suggests. Robin Guthrie wraps his guitars in effects and sets them over the relentless tick of a drum machine, Will Heggie's bass prowls underneath like something loose in the cellar, and over the top Elizabeth Fraser sings in a soprano that swoops and shrieks and often doesn't bother with recognisable words at all. It's post-punk with gothic shadows, all smoke and echo, and "Wax and Wane" and "Blood Bitch" feel less like songs than weather.

John Peel took it up on Radio 1, and it climbed into the top five of the UK independent albums chart. The dreamier Cocteau Twins, the ones who would help invent dream pop, were still ahead. This is where the spell was first cast.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.