:: Thin White Spooks

Ten genuinely creepy cuts from the Vicar's vault.

1. Atrocity Exhibition - Joy Division

It's fair to say that almost everything the Macclesfield misanthropes produced had a heavy, haunted vibe. But this track from their second album brings a particular ice to the blood. The title alone conjures unease and dread.

2. All Cats Are Grey - The Cure

Never exactly goths, Robert Smith's band could always capture the hint of a rainy, distant funeral shot in monochrome. Not least on this echoing, pained expression of regret.

3. Marian - Sisters of Mercy

Who but the Sisters could make such a fine job of a song about drowning at sea. Melodramatic and suitably baritone, it even ends with a verse in German.

4. Homicide - 999

Certainly regarded as a key punk act, 999's output didn't really mirror the sweary, gobby sound of lesser bands. In fact they always wrote smart, edgy, clipped rock songs that were unmistakably their own.

5. Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts

Not only did The Adverts produce the first punk pin-up (Gaye Advert), they also created this chilling, sinister single about an American who asked to be killed. From the point of view of a person inheriting his eyes. Cripes!

6. Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys

Was punk imported from the USA? The jury's still out. But Jello Biafra's bunch of American cynics left no doubt as to their ability to throw jabs at the establishment with more than a little humour in the mix. Green Day were listening.

7. Neat Neat Neat - The Damned

Mocked by the 'real' punks for being too silly, The Damned still managed to release the first UK punk single (New Rose) and sound like most of London's supply of speed was in their dressing room.

8. Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper Clarke

Resembling black candy floss atop a clarinet, JCC proved there was nothing more punk than just standing up and saying stuff. But what stuff.

9. Masquerade - The Skids

Very much at the arty end of the new wave, this Dunfermline outfit enjoyed a run of chart success. Wrote about Napoleonic wars thirty years before Coldplay had the idea. Guitarist Stuart Adamson went on to found Big Country.

10. Staring At The Rude Boys - The Ruts

Massively underated London punks with reggae connections, here they are knotted, punchy and pumping like a boxer's bicep - brilliantly describing rival tribes that simply don't exist any more.

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