Fields of the Nephilim’s ‘Elizium’ turns 36 on 24 September
Beggars Banquet released Fields of the Nephilim’s third album “Elizium” on 24 September 1990. Andy Jackson co-produced the eight tracks, which turn 36.
Eight tracks, two of them longer than eight minutes and one past eleven: Fields of the Nephilim built their third album around length. Beggars Banquet released “Elizium” on 24 September 1990, two years after “The Nephilim” had taken the gothic rock band from Stevenage to number 12 in the UK. The new album peaked at number 22. It turns 36 this year, and it remains the last studio record by the line-up of Carl McCoy, Tony Pettitt, Peter Yates, Paul Wright and Alexander “Nod” Wright.
The band recorded “Elizium” in 1990 at Park Gate Studios in Battle, East Sussex, with additional recording and mixing at Astoria in Hampton Court. Andy Jackson, the engineer on Pink Floyd‘s late-1980s records, produced the album with the band and engineered the sessions; Jon Carin added keyboards. McCoy wrote the lyrics and the five members share the music credits. The title respells Elysium, the afterlife of Greek religion, and “At the Gates of Silent Memory” opens with the voice of Aleister Crowley reading from his poem “At Sea” in a 1920 recording. Beverley Carruthers shot the front sleeve, and Sheer Faith and Chris Bigg designed the packaging.
‘Elizium’ tracklist, singles and reissues
The album runs 48 minutes and 3 seconds: “(Dead But Dreaming)”, “For Her Light”, “At the Gates of Silent Memory”, “(Paradise Regained)”, “Submission”, “Sumerland (What Dreams May Come)”, “Wail of Sumer” and “And There Will Your Heart Be Also”. Beggars Banquet issued it in the UK on LP, CD and cassette, with Rebel Rec. and SPV handling the German-speaking countries. “For Her Light” came out as the lead single in July 1990 and reached number 54 in the UK; “Sumerland (Dreamed Version)” followed in November 1990 and peaked at number 37.
Music On Vinyl repressed the album on LP in 2011. Beggars Arkive marked the 30th anniversary on 11 December 2020 with a 180-gram dark green vinyl edition, and on 5 April 2024 released an expanded double LP on brick red vinyl. That edition spreads the album over three sides and adds four tracks on the fourth: “Sumerland (Single Version)”, “For Her Light (Two)”, “Submission Two (The Dub Posture)” and “Sumerland (Dreamed Version)”. John Dent handled the analogue transfer and Sean Magee cut the vinyl master.
About Fields of the Nephilim
Fields of the Nephilim formed in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, in 1984 around vocalist Carl McCoy, bassist Tony Pettitt, guitarist Paul Wright, drummer Alexander “Nod” Wright and saxophonist Gary Wisker. Peter Yates joined on guitar in 1985, the year the band released the “Burning the Fields” EP on its own Tower Release label. Jungle Records reissued it and financed the “Returning to Gehenna” EP in 1986.
Situation Two, the Beggars Banquet imprint, signed the band in 1986 and released the singles “Power” and “Preacher Man” ahead of the debut album “Dawnrazor” in May 1987. The second album, “The Nephilim”, followed on 5 September 1988 and entered the UK chart at number 12, with “Moonchild” reaching number 28 as a single. The stand-alone single “Psychonaut” peaked at number 35 in May 1989, and the band moved up to the parent Beggars Banquet label for “Elizium” in September 1990.
The two-night Festival of Fire at London’s Town & Country Club in 1991 produced the live album “Earth Inferno”, released on 25 March 1991, and the concert video “Visionary Heads”. McCoy left later that year. Pettitt, Yates and the Wright brothers continued as Rubicon with singer Andy Delaney, releasing “What Starts, Ends” in 1992 and “Room 101” in 1995, while McCoy formed Nefilim, whose only album “Zoon” appeared in 1996.
McCoy and Pettitt announced a reunion at the Zillo Festival in Germany on 15 August 1998. Jungle Records issued the single “One More Nightmare (Trees Come Down)” in May 2000 and, in October 2002, the album “Fallen”, compiled from 1997 to 2001 recordings and disowned by the band as unauthorised. “Mourning Sun”, the first new Fields of the Nephilim studio album since “Elizium”, came out on 28 November 2005. A new line-up returned to the stage at the London Astoria in May 2007 and headlined M’era Luna in 2008. The double live album “Ceromonies (Ad Mortem Ad Vitam)”, recorded at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, appeared on McCoy’s Sacred Symphony label in April 2012, and the single “Prophecy” followed on 17 March 2016. Guitarist Tom Edwards, a member from 2008 to 2016, died in January 2017, as Side-Line reported in Fields of the Nephilim / Adam Ant guitarist Tom Edwards dies aged 41.
Beggars Arkive has since reissued the Situation Two and Beggars Banquet catalogue: the 30th anniversary “Elizium” in December 2020, an expanded “The Nephilim” in October 2023, the four-track expanded “Elizium” in April 2024 and a remastered “Dawnrazor” in December 2025. McCoy and Pettitt lead the current line-up with guitarists Gavin King and Adam Leach. Thirty-six years after its release, “Elizium” closes the first chapter of that catalogue, the final album of the original five-piece before “Earth Inferno” documented its last shows.
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