The fifth goth decade is upon us!

Forty years on from the movement’s birth, the recent "third generation revival" means that the gothic musical community enters the new decade in a better shape than ten years ago, when the genre seemed to have almost fizzled out.

With new labels, podcasts, vlogs and blogs having sprung up to support the worldwide network of innovative bands helping the music to evolve ever further, goth music is now in a robust state and more than ready for the mainstream musical community to start to take a more serious interest in recent developments.

Then Comes Silence photo by Jonas Fransson

2020 looks as if it will start the new decade with a bang, with new albums in the immediate pipeline for some of the movement’s stellar acts. Swedish stalwarts Then Comes Silence have recently announced new distribution deals with SPV for their new album Machine which is due to be released in March, preceded by a new single We Lose The Night as early as January 10^th, their first new release in over two years, and the first to feature the stunningly revamped 'live' line-up with Mattias Ruejas Jonson and Hugo Zombie on guitars joining founder member Alex Svenson and drummer Jonas Fransson, who had joined the band for their last album Blood in 2017. With the buzz about the band having grown steadily over the past two years, the impetus of a new album and slots at major European alternative festivals later in the year should propel the band firmly to the forefront of what will hopefully be a fully-fledged global revival.

Classic goth rock act Sonsombre are also getting the new decade off to an explosive start with their third album, One Thousand Graves due out on January 21^st. The teaser single from the album, Lights Out, which was released in hints at a slightly darker tinge to the classic Sonsombre sound, along the lines of Fear on the previous album. With the band making its first venture to Europe, 2020 is likely to see Brandon Pybus and his acolytes consolidate their position as one of the leading lights of the gothic revival, projecting an image that is both familiar and unique, capable of attracting new fans to the genre whilst appealing to returning fans from the original gothic wave of the mid-1980's.

A third leading goth revival act to have a new album slated for the very start of the new decade is The Kentucky Vampires, whose sophomore set Darkest Hour is due for release on Secret Sin Records early in the year. Again, there has already been the opportunity to gauge the direction the band will be taking with the release of the Blood And Tears EP (with mastering by Sonsombre’s Pybus) towards the end of 2019. Holy Heretic, the lead track, showed that the band has lost none of the graveyard charm that made their unique vocal and guitar style a critical success on their debut LP in 2018, whilst other tracks on the EP hint at a darker, slower heavier approach but retaining the key elements that make their records so instantly recognisable.

Also ready for release in early 2020 is The Diabolus, the latest album from The Society, the band formed by Paul Gilmartin (drummer for seminal 80’s post-punk band The Danse Society) to continue the Barnsley group’s musical heritage. With Paul “Grape” Gregory and Dave “Wolfie” Wolfenden (ex-Red Lorry Yellow Lorry) from Leeds legends The Expelaires (the original band of The Sisters of Mercy’s Craig Adams) recently recruited to The Society’s ranks, the ten new tracks will build on the legacy of the most recent Night Ship EP and will feature the dark atmospherics and powerful drumming that made the original Danse Society one of the original movement’s most successful bands.

With Stranger and Lovers, Mark E Moon, Grooving In Green and Scary Black amongst others also this week announcing new releases in 2020, the fifth decade of goth could not get off to a more secure start. Stay goth!