No. 18 - The Veils of Ending, Sonsombre (2019)

It’s hard to believe that it’s only just over a year since Brandon Pybus launched his Sonsombre project on Bandcamp, as a mere fourteen months later the band is already rightly at the very forefront of the renascent gothic movement. With his long black frock coat, shades and preacher/state trooper hat, the unapologetically goth Pybus is every inch the reincarnation of a first generation goth poster boy, and with two memorable albums already released with a third imminent, not to mention a further excellent set of songs recorded with Chronic Twilight’s Michael Louis under the moniker Shadow Assembly, he is by far the most prolific artist in a genre dogged by musicians and lyricists suffering from permanent creative block – by way of contrast, Pybus’ heroes Carl McCoy and Andrew Eldritch have recorded and released precisely one new song (Fields of The Nephilim’s Prophecy) between them this decade!

That is not to say in any way that Sonsombre (which is French for "darksound") lacks quality control, with both albums packed full of well-crafted and well-executed songs which reveal that Pybus not only takes musical inspiration from the first generation of goth rock acts in the late 1980’s but also from second wavers like The Wake and Nosferatu and indeed the wall-of-sound acoustics of fellow third wavers Ground Nero. Add to that an appreciation of song and chord structure and dynamics from his long-term dabblings in black/viking metal bands, two of which had also released a brace of albums (each!!) in 2018, and you have a work-rate and sense of musical appreciation that even the late great Prince would have found hard to beat.

As a long-term student and admirer of the genre, it should have come as little surprise that his first recorded goth rock efforts should be so well-formed, and from the first notes of the organ introduction to the explosive opening track (Nocturnal) on Sonsombre’s debut album A Funeral for The Sun, it was clear that this was a project of high musical and lyrical quality and intensity. Nocturnal revealed Pybus’ obsession with late 80’s goth rock pioneers Fields of the Nephilim, owing more than just an atmosphere to Dawnrazor opener Slow Kill (a track the Sonsombre has recorded but not yet released), with the bellowed chorus bearing all the melodramatic hallmarks of McCoy’s much-imitated vocal style, although few have managed to render it with the panache which Pybus effortlessly manages here.

Other tracks on the A Funeral for The Sun, which was effectively an accumulation of demos recorded over the previous two years, reveal a much broader musical palette, with the occasional nod to Pybus’ Virginian homeland, whether in the Cajun guitar on Should I Go On or the slide guitar in the deathrock-influenced A Dance By The Graves, alongside some more straight forward “rockers” which would have crossover appeal to closet metal (i.e. The Cult) fans.

Originally only a digital release, the album was immediately championed by the Finland-based boss of Post-Gothic Records, Oskar Terrormortis, who has done so much to promote bands in the genre over the decade, and was duly re-released on CD in January 2019 containing an extra track, In This Fog, which had a more complete production and which featured heavily on goth internet radio/podcast playlists at the start of the year.

Even before the album had sold out of its initial run of CDs, something of a rarity in the download/stream-for-free era, Pybus announced that he had already completed the follow-up, and the sophomore Sonsombre set The Veils of Ending was released in June to unsurprisingly unanimous acclaim. Still lyrically obsessed with familiar gothic themes (e.g. shadows, mirrors, death etc), songs such as The Future Is Black and Fear quickly made the transition to becoming staples at uber-cool goth club nights across the globe, whilst Between and Matte Black had chord structures and dynamics that would immediately appeal to new-content-starved fans of the genre’s godfathers, The Sisters of Mercy.

Latter tracks of the album such as Mirror, Mirror and Unfit for Ending showed a great feel for atmospherics, reminiscent of both genre-defining first generation acts like Bauhaus (Mask era) and cult second generation artists like Corpus Delicti (particularly their classic song The Lake), hinting at a further development of the Sonsombre sound, which will be possibly more apparent on the new album which, fittingly, will be released at the very start of the new decade on Cleopatra Records, the ultimate accolade for an artist who grew up obsessed with the Californian label’s releases over twenty years ago.

With Sonsombre now operating also as a live band garnering rave reviews for their early US shows and with top European gothic festivals aiming to sign the band up for 2020, Pybus’ prodigious workload will only increase, particularly given his notable success in engineering/mastering releases for the likes of Chronic Twilight and The Kentucky Vampires amongst others, but again it is the sheer quality of his work rather than the unusual quantity of it that impresses the most.

Pybus’ already legendary catchphrase, “Stay goth!” has certainly been a far easier status to maintain since he emerged onto the scene little more than a year ago, revitalising a love for power chords in a genre that had been increasingly dominated by artists using just a picked or arpeggio-ed guitar style (which Pybus also uses when appropriate). Sonsombre’s releases are available via Bandcamp and other outlets.

Those who love bands with a sound partially inspired by Fields of the Nephilim should also think of checking out current UK act Guillotine Dream, or earlier bands Dronning Maudland and Sweet Ermengarde.