This was the earliest song I wrote for the album, you can tell from the lyric it’s from an earlier, more naive me. Written in the form of a letter from the transvestite vicar to his daughter, it sort of deepens the plot of the album’s narrative a bit before it’s all resolved on the final track, Dark Mavis. The title was elongated as it seemed to earnest and this whole track was the most long winded and complicated to finish on the album. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of ‘Attack Of The Grey Lantern’, a very limited number of this beautiful vinyl picture disc featuring the iconic roses design, are now available signed by Paul Draper.

This remix was included on Oakenfold's compilation Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream, as an indicator of being one of the most played songs at major UK nightclub Cream, as well as in nightclubs around the world, over the 1997–1999 period. Here at NME, we deemed it the 44th best album of 1997 in our end of year list (and there was stiff competition that year, believe us). The next day I came back and Ronnie Stone, our engineer / producer said to me the verse vocal was weak so I re-recorded it and that was the only change from the track that was completed in a day.Listening back to the lyrics I’m reeling off characters from the fictitious small northern town where the album is set, ‘Skinima Nosebreak’ ‘Fatima Toothpaste’ ‘Penelope Cheapskate’ ‘Claudia Farmgate’, not your average lyric for the era really and still makes me chuckle to this day that something so absurd hit No.

There aren't that many metal artists or albums that I care for that much, but ISIS is certainly a band that I do enjoy a lot. Originally this song was entitled ‘Desperate Icons’, a song I’d began writing quite a few years as a teenager before the album’s release. A bizarre pseudo rap about a transvestite vicar who cross dresses like his daughter, it seemed a good idea at the time and slightly subversive but seems a little tame by today’s standards where such things are pretty run of the mill.Wide Open Space" became a dance anthem after being remixed by DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold under the production alias Perfecto. Panopticon is definitely their best album in my opinion, but the rest of their discography is worth a listen (in particular the almost equally fantastic Oceanic album). I remember being slightly off my tits in Ibiza when Paul Oakenfold’s remix came on in Pacha and it blew me away. The amount of times I’ve sat in pubs trying to explain to people what it’s all about is mind boggling, and in the mists of time, I’m not sure I can even remember myself. The amount of times I’ve sat in pubs trying to explain to people what ‘Stripper Vicar’ is all about is mind boggling, and in the mists of time, I’m not sure I can even remember myself.