Well under a year after releasing debut album The
Widow, Matt Vowles’ Black Angel project return this week with
their sophomore effort, Kiss of Death. Unashamedly influenced by
the gothic sounds of Vowles’ own 1980’s youth in the UK, Black Angel’s debut
was a highly polished affair stuffed full of strong melodies and brooding
atmosphere, with earworms like Poison, Would I Lie To You, Christine,
She and Bullet In The Head still enjoying heavy rotation on goth
radio podcasts. Rarely has a debut album in the goth/darkwave genre sounded so
complete.
Announcing the new album, Vowles claimed that Kiss
of Death would be both “more goth” and “more punkabilly” than the debut
set, and referenced The Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland and The Damned’s Phantasmogoria
as the influences for the new record. Even a cursory listen reveals that once
again, he has comfortably achieved his aim.
Title track Kiss of Death kicks off proceedings
with a suitably brooding instrumental introduction before an epic Lucretian
riff reassures the listener that the sheer quality of The Widow in terms
of both music and production is going to maintained on what is far from a
“difficult” second album. Fans of The Sisters of Mercy’s more Wagnerian moments
will be in their element, as they will on other tracks like recent single Animal.
If your taste is more Shadow of Love than This Corrosion, then
the gothabilly of first single Put Your Lips On Me and the superb dark
goth-punk of Prisoner will delight in equal measure.
For me though, the stand-out track is the album
closer, the band’s eponymous signature tune Black Angel, with a
squawking sax added to a more nuanced mix over a traditional goth descending bassline
heard on everything from the “Poor Bela!” section of that Bauhaus classic to
Then Comes Silence’s She Loves The Night.
Vowles’ professional background in sound recording
and mastering in the TV and movie industries enables him to produce a
wonderfully sumptuous and multi-layered sound far removed from the scene’s more
two-dimensional norm, and new vocalist Corey seamlessly slips into Rob’s shoes
so successfully that most listeners will barely notice the difference. Whilst
Vowles understandably baulks at any comparison to the likes of Billy Idol or INXS
alongside more obvious influences like chart-era TSOM, the radio-friendly
strong melodies and powerful production on Kiss of Death have more
crossover potential than any other album I have heard this year and could be
the Trojan Horse to help the resurgent genre spread beyond its small but
enthusiastic internet fanbase.
To find out more about the genesis of Kiss of
Death, I contacted Matt and was delighted that he agreed to become the
first interviewee to face a second batch of questions to celebrate the album’s
release, and I’d like to thank him for taking time out of a very busy schedule
to produce such interesting responses.
Kiss Of Death
is available now via Bandcamp.
1. You had another mammoth search for a new vocalist before settling on Corey Landis for the new album. Did you despair of ever finding the right person? How did you find Corey in the end?
I did. It seemed never-ending. I had
feelers out all over the place from small ads to personal contacts for months
and nothing seemed to fit. I heard some great singers and to all who helped out,
thank you. Corey answered an online ad and at first I thought it might not mesh
but he was cool enough to demo for Put Your Lips.. - and boom! It was a
fit.
2. The vocals are a very distinctive part of the Black Angel sound, and Corey’s vocal style is quite similar to Robert’s on the first album, partly because of the technique multi-tracking one octave apart. Although not a vocalist yourself, you clearly had a very clear idea of the style of vocal you were looking for, and I was wondering what influenced that choice?
For me the most influential Goth bands
of the 80’s had an immediate and very distinctive vocal sound - it was a large
part of the magic that made them what they were. For me this is still a massive
part of the process and without a distinctive vocalist you don’t really have the
full package. It’s totally vital - listeners need a personality, a distinct
sound to connect to. Part of that comes from the music and the rest from the
very natural human nature of the human voice. And if it speaks to us, then we
remember - and connect with it.
3. Had you not found Corey, had you considered approaching Goth scene legends to provide guest vocals on one track each for Black Angel, having established your reputation with The Widow? If so, who would you have approached?
I did. And it was really close to being
the next step. I’d spoken to a few legends from the 80’s and a few were open to
the possibility. I conversed with a few vocalists from the current scene too
and although it would have been awesome, Black Angel really needed their own
voice - it was imperative that we found a new vocalist that could tackle and
compliment all the tracks in the new album. Corey did that - and really well.
4. You said that the new album would be more punkabilly and more goth influenced than The Widow, mentioning Phantasmagoria and Floodland as points of reference, and the first two singles from Kiss of Death (Put Your Lips On Me and Animal respectively) certainly bear witness to that. Do you consider those two albums by The Damned and The Sisters of Mercy to be the highpoint of Goth musical culture of the 80’s? Do you envisage refining this “gothabilly” style more on the next Black Angel release?
I was really influenced in the 80’s -
and yes, I’ll probably mention that period a bunch more times - as it was so
important to me for so many reasons - I initially was introduced to The Clash,
The Damned, Sex Pistols and psychobilly bands like The Meteors before Goth
really kicked in so that was tucked away in my head. When I started writing KOD
I usually start with the bass guitar and if I find a strong riff I like I just
go with it. I guess that particular month when I first started writing, a bunch
of more punk and psychobilly energy came out. I am massively influenced by The
Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and The Cult so the other 2/3rds if the album is the
direction of more gothic rock. I like those faster tracks though and glad that
they are on there. For our next and third album Prince of Darkness it
will be even more gothic rock.
5. You mentioned in our last interview about your love of Goth music stemming from your visits to clubs in your native UK back in the 80’s – does your punkabilly influence stem from that time too, in other words were you a fan of bands like The Meteors and the whole Klub Foot scene in London?
For sure. My brother Dan (who
incidentally got me to this whole thing in the first place - from giving me The
Clash’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope cassette to listen to – we used to frequent
a club in Bristol called The Whip. It was mostly a goth club but it did share
some of its patrons with a group of Psychobilly Bristolians and so I was also
introduced to bands like The Meteors and The Cramps and heavier punk bands like
The Damned and The Sex Pistols.
6. You run your own studio in LA, mainly working for your day job on re-recording sound for TV shows and movies, and the production/mastering on Black Angel records produces a noticeably fuller sound than many of your contemporaries. Would you like to get more involved in that side of things, i.e. mastering and producing for other Goth/darkwave bands? If so, are there any bands on the current scene who have caught your eye?
I would
- given the time! I’ve been thinking about it over the last year - that
if I was approached, I would I do it. Well… I’d love to be able to, but at the
moment, juggling Black Angel and my film career takes up all of my time.
There’s family too - I’m not always locked away in the studio. You need to find
a balance. I would take on mastering jobs though! If it’s well recorded and
mixed, it’s a great feeling to master someone else’s work and they come back
with ‘Wow, how did you do that?!’
7. Last time around I was complimenting you on the incredibly impressive trailers which you did for The Widow (and those for the latest releases have been equally as good from a graphic and editing perspective), but you also seem to have become quickly adept at using Bandcamp and social media in an imaginative way to engage with fans, offering them the chance to have their name feature as supporters of the project on the album sleeve notes, asking them to do the vocal introduction to the album, reducing the CD’s packaging to save massively on the otherwise prohibitive postage costs to Europe etc. Has Bandcamp helped you to find a global audience more quickly than just having your own website or using Spotify and other platforms?
Totally, Bandcamp has been a complete
amazing experience for us. With previous projects I’ve been involved in, before
Black Angel, I paid publicity companies to get us placed on Spotify playlists
in order to gain plays, but none of it was real
- for sure lots of people listened but there was no human connection,
which is what I miss. The great thing
with Bandcamp is that I can connect directly with supporters and they are
really engaged – and they give me the enthusiasm to do this every day. Every
album or track sold I email each person directly to thank them, there is a real
connection between us.
I’m excited to offer the getting their
name on the CD - as a fan I would love to be able to do that. I was actually
inspired by Gary Numan, he lives just around the corner from me - I noticed he
was selling studio gear on his website and signing it, also doing meet and
greets at live performances - I thought it would be great if I offered
supporters to get there name on the CD sleeve notes - if I was a fan I’d think
that was pretty cool.
Bandcamp is so refreshing that there are
people out there that want to seek out new music and want to buy bands’
physical products. Streaming services, although have their place, are so
faceless and impersonal.
8. Talking about finding a bigger audience, many of the “alternative” tracks on YouTube with a high number of views are littered with comments like “(insert name of dark US drama series here) brought me here”. Are you trying to use your contacts in the industry to see if any Black Angel tracks might be suitable for use on soundtracks? Would you be choosey about which shows you would allow your songs to feature on, or would you just welcome the additional exposure?
I do work in the Film and Television
industry, that’s true – and I am connected with many great music supervisors.
I’ve had multiple tracks placed in films and TV shows over the years – but all
led by me (only natural, I guess) - these days I enjoy the musical process with
Black Angel so much, if its going to happen, it will happen organically. I worked on so many albums over the two
decades that were for commercial gain, it got kinda lifeless – the reason I
started Black Angel was so I could write and produce the kind of music I liked
and if nobody else did, that was ok – I wrote for myself – so I want to do that
with any outside sync considerations too – I’m hoping a picture editor or music
sup will call me up and say ‘Hey, I heard your music, I think it’s totally rad
– would you consider a placement?’
9. A lot of the imagery of the band on both videos and artwork seems to have a strong influence of 1950’s film noir and horror movies. Are these genres a big influence on you lyrically and visually?
I’m a huge film noir fan. Love Black
& White film and photography. I
actually studied photography at college back in the late 80’s and that was
going to be my career. Decided I didn’t want to do it for money, only pleasure,
so that’s what I do now. Then I went to film school and learned film theory -
all of that visually influenced Black Angel - I just wish we had the budget to
do things ‘bigger’ - it’s hugely expensive to make videos and promos (if you do
it right) and as we are not with a major label we are still very much DIY -
sometimes I like it that way - I have
100% control and the only one to blame is me - if it sucks visually or tracks
sound rubbish.
10. The singles released in advance of Kiss Of Death have all garnered excellent reviews, and influential websites like Sounds and Shadows and White Light/White Heat have selected them as “Song Of The Day”. What matters most to you this time round – high sales or critical/fan acclaim?
Good question! Bandcamp sales help pay
for the album manufacturing and maybe some partial studio costs and other
sundry items - it enables us to move on with the next album - which I’ve
already started :) - so we need that.
The acclaim is awesome too. I have only
one goal. That is for listeners to feel how I did when I first listened to goth
music in the clubs of the eighties — if they get that rush of adrenaline that
makes them want to leap onto the dance floor because they heard one of our
songs, then we are doing something right – and we’ll keep on going……
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