The Best New Goth/Post-Punk Releases of Winter 2024/25

The darker winter months are naturally a particularly fecund season for new releases by projects in the goth/post-punk world, but far too often this new material is unfairly overlooked in end-of-year ‘best of’ lists which are often in reality finalised not long after Halloween. The winter of 2024/25 has confirmed not only the broad musical range that falls under the ‘goth’ label these days, but also the movement’s global reach, as this selection of some of the best new releases of the last three months of the year will hopefully demonstrate. The twenty tracks are listed roughly in order of genre, from synthwave through guitar-based post-punk to trad occult goth rock.

Kaelan Mikla - Stjörnuljós

The Icelandic trio return with an enchanting dark pop coldwave ballad, all breathy vocal and swirling synths. A decade on from the punky energy of their primal scream/bass/drums earliest efforts, KM continue to show every sign of developing into a global success story.

Bandcamp link

They Die - That Flame Goes Out

Darkwave Italian trio They Die had already delivered one of the best albums of 2024 in Black Magic, and returned in the last autumn with Darkroom Session, a ‘live in the studio’ album, an increasingly popular product which works both as a ‘greatest hits’ compilation for more recent fans (to catch up on earlier classics like That Flame Goes Out for example, in They Die’s case, and featured here) and as a realistic depiction of the sound that fans heading to their growing number of live appearances can expect. Although still criminally unrecognised, They Die are very much the sound of 2020’s goth, seamlessly melding the synth- and guitar-based branches into one darkly intoxicating musical elixir in which Simone Scar Scarini’s sonorous and lugubrious vocal is a chief attraction.

Bandcamp link 

Divine Shade - Hate and Oblivion

The latest pre-release track for Divine Shade’s upcoming 2025 debut album Fragments is a perfect introduction to the range and depth of their sound, combining various elements from electro/dubstep to dark twang, the end result a compelling melange of Gary Numan and The Young Gods. Haunting melodies, a strong, impassioned vocal and an on-point backbeat combine to produce a heady and satisfying musical cocktail.

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Ductape and She Past Away - Ölüm Günüm

Inspired collaboration between Turkey’s finest post-punk exports, Ölüm Günüm is classy, swirling darkwave delight which effortlessly blends the unique charms of both acts to synergical and multi-layered effect, with Çağla and Volkan alternating on vocals for the verses and combining for the chorus.

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Black Doldrums - Dying For You

London-based Black Doldrums have deservedly carved out a reputation for highly quality dark psych post-punk, but on this the third single from their second album for (appropriately) Fuzz Club Records In Limerence they go full miserygoth with a descending bassline, minimalist miserabilist synth motif, melancholic reverb guitar riff and Kevin Gibbard’s dark vocal all contributing to a beautifully crafted song which will appeal equally to fans of Joy Division and Mayflower Madame.

Bandcamp link

Zombina and the Skeletones - Don’t Kick My Coffin

Out just in time for Halloween, the lead single from the very welcome comeback album from the ‘Tones, was a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek retro slab of kitsch 60’s graveyard rock, more psychedelic Damned/Naz Nomad than punkabilly Cramps. More cartoonishly spooky goth than the Hex Girls themselves, ZATS have been announced as co-headliners of June’s Deadinburgh Festival.

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Then Comes Silence - Stay Strange (featuring Dusty Gannon)

Autumn saw some unusual duets to say the least (Boy George and Peter Murphy, anyone??) but also the single release from the album Trickery of this excellent slice of goth’n’roll from dark post-punk gurus Then Comes Silence, with Vision Video’s “Goth Dad” social media star Dusty Gannon onboard to emphasise the scene-affirming Stay Strange message. The hard-working genre-leading Swedes will be back out on the road in 2025, with Vision Video themselves ending the year touring their own new album as support act to first wave legends The Chameleons.

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Corpus Delicti - A Fairy Lie

Arguably the most inventive and consistent act of the gothic second wave of the 1990’s, French legends Corpus Delicti continued their triumphant return with an ambitious second single which effortlessly by-steps the cloying tropes which restrict and mire so many third wave projects, opting for a typically original two-part song, the first dominated by a great vocal by Sébastien Pietrapiana, a lilting lament over an acoustic backing in waltz-time reminiscent of Bauhaus’ The Three Shadows Pt 2, before exploding into an intense crescendo where the talents of three instrumentalists shine, with Franck Amendola’s spidery, angular, shimmering guitar riffs, Laurent Tamagno’s powerful freeform drumming and Christophe Baudrion’s bass gymnastics conjuring up the intoxicating spirit of McGeoch-era Banshees.

Bandcamp link

Artica - Dancing (Thru The Cemetery Gates)

Another second gen goth rock band with a very welcome new release are Italian act Artica, whose Polychrome album came out at the end of November. Previous single and lead track Dancing (Thru The Cemetery Gates) is more understated than their more derivative 90’s material, featuring a more jangly post-punk guitar sound alongside some rather clichéd lyrics.

Bandcamp link

Spire Circle - Burning Alive

Manchester project Spire Circle may have one of those illegible death metal logos but their music is pure dark dancefloor post-punk. Burning Alive harks back to the angular yet hypnotic drum machine motorik beats of bands like Dormannu and Terminal Power Company from earlier waves, creating a stark but muscular groove which will get the most reluctant of suede- and leather-clad toes a-tapping.

Bandcamp link

Light of Eternity - Aftershock

The title track from the second EP from Killing Joke drummer Big Paul Ferguson’s Light of Eternity side-project begins with typically frenetic and intense drumming and familiar atonal chugging, continuing the uncompromising promise of their debut earlier in the year. A digital-only release so far, this follow-up EP confirms that Light of Eternity have the sonic power as well as the personal pedigree to make a big impact in 2025.

Bandcamp link

Treponem Pal - Ghost Rider

The French “metal indus” giants have prefaced their 2025 crowd-funded EP Life Inside with an early Christmas present in the form of this respectful but respectful cover of Suicide’s Ghost Rider, a favourite of many post-punk/goth acts down the years. With the usual punishing riffs and metronomic beat with that distinctive reverberating deadpan vocal floating over the top, Treponem Pal continue to set the standard in the goth industrial metal sub-genre.

Bandcamp link 

Diavol Strâin - Venus 17

An enchanting cacophony of rumbling, muddy bass, distant spidery filigree guitar craftwork and foghorn vocal stylings can only mean one thing, the creative genius of Chilean darkwave duo Diavol Strâin are back with a typically challenging yet rewarding EP of musical delights, Vipera Mortis, delivered at the end of a topsoil-turvy year which saw the pair marry, mourn the death of an early collaborator and suffer the cancellation of the EP launch party event. Venus 17 is typical of their single-minded commitment to pushing the sonic boundaries of the genre to mesmerising effect.

Bandcamp link

Polar Dust - From The Flame

A slow and menacing fuzz guitar riff launches this ethereal trad goth rock epic from South African project Polar Dust’s sophomore album, a decade on from their debut. Whilst the strong but mesmerisingly otherworldly female vocal has hints of Jefferson Airplane era Grace Slick, the band will continue to struggle to shrug off the inevitable Evanescence comparisons, but with well-constructed songs like From The Flame the album should sell well in Northern Europe.

Bandcamp link

As Flowers Decay - Golden Cage

A real earworm from Costa Rica, As Flowers Decay’s Golden Cage is from the debut album Requiem which was released last month. Whilst there’s an undeniable demo quality in the recording and a strong 1980’s indie/goth vibe throughout, the one-man project delivers a well-crafted ditty with a sonorous vocal and a memorable hook, hinting at potentially greater things ahead. 

Bandcamp link 

Caressing Misery - Contemplation of a Withering Heart

Caressing Misery is the latest collaboration from one of the scene’s foremost guitarists, Zac Campbell (The Kentucky Vampires, The Waning Moon), this time working with the strong sepulchral baritone of Shallow Graves’ Julian Aust, who share a love of the late 90’s gothic rock/gothic metal crossover (think Paradise Lost). Teaser single A Thousand Seasons’ up-tempo chug is atypical of debut album Lost and Serene, which is stuffed with slow-burning classics like Contemplation of a Withered Heart, which give both artists full rein to showcase their ample talents.

Bandcamp link

IKON - Black Roses (remix)

Chris McCarter’s Australian band is another second wave band undergoing a creative renaissance, with a solid new album released this autumn (their eighth), Realm of The Black Sun, and a wonderful remix of classic track Black Roses for its thirtieth anniversary. 

Bandcamp link

Dark Side Cowboys - Gunslinger

Whilst the musical contents of this latest release from Sweden’s gothic gunslingers are exactly as one might predict in a “wysiwyg” manner, there is no denying the derivative quality of the new EP, well-crafted and well-produced songs straight from the plains, for the aural delight of traditional goth rock fans everywhere.

Bandcamp link

Chaos Bleak - Deathtrain

A galloping beat, some chugging riffs and a diesel-soaked trad goth ambiance underpin the latest single from veteran UK goth rockers Chaos Bleak with second generation guru Trevor Bamford, who launched the seminal New Alternatives compilation LP on his own Nightbreed imprint in 1990, on guitar. There are shades of 80’s guitar-based goth acts like Hunter’s Club and Play Dead (whose Walk Away is covered elsewhere on the EP) on this spooky, scuzzy high-speed express of a track.

Bandcamp link

NFD - Second Sight

Although Tony Pettit and Simon Rippin may no longer be involved in this post-Nephilim project, the influence of Stevenage’s finest remains strong on this latest EP of trad goth rock released right at the year’s end, not least because of the growled vocal of talismanic front man ‘Bob’ White and presence in the band these days of the ubiquitous Lars Kappeler (Sweet Ermengarde, October Burns Black). 

Bandcamp link

Album Reviews: Mayflower Madame ‘Insight’ and The Cure ‘Songs Of A Lost World’

By coincidence (or perhaps not given that it was Halloween weekend), the most eagerly-anticipated releases of 2024, by both original wave and current wave post-punk artists, were released simultaneously recently, with The Cure’s Songs Of A Lost World and Mayflower Madame’s Insight coming out on the same day.

Both bands’ genial frontmen had been affected by bereavement in the preparation of their respective new albums, with Robert Smith grieving over the passing of his brother and his parents, with Trond Fagernes and his partner trying to come to terms with the devastating tragic stillbirth of their daughter Marion, to whom Insight is dedicated. 

Insight opens with a beautiful and understated tribute to Marion, a wonderful lullaby lament where Fagernes wistfully reflects on how things might have been (“For all she could have been, For all she should have been”), the song’s title (Ocean of Bitterness) hinting not only at the depth and breadth of anger which the author must feel at being cheated out of the opportunity to see and experience his cherished daughter growing up, but also of the sublime melodic melancholy dark light psychgaze soundscapes with which his musical project has become synonymous. The song’s simple, syncopated gothic riff is played on an acoustic guitar, reflecting the muted and sombre lyrical tone, and is a model of efficiency, weighing in at less than three minutes, a perfect start to an album which is once again a very rewarding if at times emotionally challenging listen.

This contrasts significantly with Alone, the opener of The Cure’s LP, where the bloated, repetitive and strangely disjointed (from a production perspective, with the various instruments failing to gel properly) lugubrious instrumental intro builds for well over three minutes before the familiar pained Robert Smith vocal is heard for the first time.

Smith spoke in a recent interview about the difficulties he has faced in penning lyrics for the many soundscapes/works-in-progress which he has composed over the past decade, which may explain the lengthy and occasionally tedious introductions to many of the Songs Of A Lost World, with album closer (and undoubted highlight) Endsong already over the six minute mark by the time Smith first exercises his trademark tonsils.

The epic song durations, funereal pace and introspective lyrical content have inevitably but deservedly drawn contrasts with past gloomy classic albums like Faith and Disintegration, as opposed to more upbeat Cure hits like Lovecats and Friday, I’m In Love, and the difference between Songs Of A Lost World and its ‘immediate’ predecessor could not be more striking.

2008’s 4:13 Dream’s set of thirteen quirky, mostly short, raw and often energetically inventive songs found little favour amongst critics and fans alike (peaking at a dismal 33 in the UK album charts, for example), whereas the eight more immediate and familiar tracks of Songs Of A Lost World saw the LP go straight to the top of the UK album chart amidst heightened media interest and critical acclaim.

Smith may have struggled for inspiration for subject matter for the album, finally writing mainly about suddenly finding himself alienated and in an older generation (“I’m outside in the dark, wondering how I got so old”, “I know that my world is grown old”, “My weary dance with age” etc), a theme his sibling’s untimely demise (chronicled in the touching I Can Never Say Goodbye) may have highlighted, and one which (given their age demographic) many long-term fans of the band will find appealing, but the album also seems somewhat devoid of truly genuine musical creativity: many of the crowd-pleasing tracks have the same slightly prog-rock overextended and self-indulgent feel, with the soothing, unchallenging and cosy familiarity of, say, Pachelbel’s Canon, slow-burning and rather stodgy MOR epics seemingly designed to be played comfortably on stage by the ageing band in their legendarily overlong gigs. On the one occasion when the tempo is switched up, on Drone:Nodrone, both the bouncy, “baggy” beat (in the style of EMF’s Unbelievable) and debutant Reeves Gabrels’ much-criticised wah-wah riffs (too intrusive for the more conservative longterm fans, apparently) are strikingly retro and highly reminiscent of 1990’s standalone single Never Enough.

The turgid and uninspired arrangements which often bedevil Songs Of A Lost World are all the more apparent when contrasted with the intricate, intriguing and inventive song structures on Mayflower Madame’s Insight. The stunning interplay between guitar (Rune Overby), bass (Fagernes himself) and synths (Kenneth Eknes), and the shuffling motorik drumbeat (Ola J. Kyrkjeeide) make for a refreshing yet intense mix, topped with Fagernes’ low-key but angst-ridden vocal. 

On the previous two albums issued during the Norwegian project’s decade-plus history (Observed In A Dream and Prepared For A Nightmare), the lyrical focus had been on the darker places to which the mind wanders during the moments between sleep and consciousness, a time now sadly and understandably also haunted for Fagernes by a very sharp and agonising sense of loss, an inevitably omnipresent if often unspoken factor throughout the album, which is at its most harrowing and poignant in the downbeat closer Insight For The Mourning Hours.

Sonically, part in thanks to the sharp mixing and mastering skills of Maurizio Baggio (best-known for his groundbreaking work with the late, lamented The Soft Moon), Fagernes’ songs retain from the projects’s first two albums the dreamy, cinematic grandeur with underlying emotional turmoil of Echo and The Bunnymen’s masterpiece Ocean Rain, with at turns elements of lo-fi, shoegaze and dark psych to add some thrilling spice to the already potent musical mix and retain the listener’s full attention.

The trademark Mayflower Madame sound is showcased to particularly good effect on the album’s original pair of teaser tracks, A Foretold Ecstasy and Paint It All In Blue, which had understandably ramped up expectations prior to Insight’s release. Whilst there isn’t a bad track on the album, to be pedantically critical, there is arguably an overall lack of variety of pace in Insight’s internal dynamics. Nevertheless, the new LP stands not only as a fitting and emotional tribute to a much-loved and much-missed daughter, but as a modern masterpiece of the ever-evolving post-punk genre, demonstrating a daring blend of subtlety, vigour and ingenuity that were, ironically, once The Cure’s stock-in-trade. 

Whilst Songs Of A Lost World would in some ways serve as a generically appropriate finale for The Cure’s stellar career, one can only hope that Smith delivers on the hint that it is in fact the first of a trilogy of individually very different albums, and that the subsequent instalments will deviate from the pleasant but over-safe palette of sounds demonstrated on the new release. 

Mayflower Madame’s album is available via Bandcamp here

The Cure’s album is available here