The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - final part of the countdown, the top 5

 

The identity of this year’s Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 5 of 2020 will come as little surprise to regular readers, as all five projects have consistently hit the heights with each release and gradually grown their fanbases as a result. All five have released outstanding tracks this year which will surely stand the test of time, and lead the genre ever forward as both new, younger fans and elder goths returning to the scene continue to be attracted to the worldwide gothic renaissance. 2020 has been a uniquely challenging year, but the music of these five artists in particular has seen many of us through the darker days, with hopefully a return to some kind of normality now on the horizon.

 

 

5 Stranger and Lovers – Spiritual f. Succubus.

Mexico City (CDMX) band Stranger and Lovers have continued to plot their careful route to the top by releasing their 2019 debut on more platforms and signing a distribution deal with Young and Cold to release their forthcoming 2021 album to a wider public. This year saw the band release just three tracks, but all showed the band’s unique appeal: creating a new darkwave strand played on vintage instruments but embracing all that digital studio technology has to offer, with the vocals (apparently in English) used as an extra instrument in the way that the first-generation bands like The Sisters of Mercy and Fields of The Nephilim did. Fans of The Sisters and The Nephs will particularly appreciate the chugging rock of most recent teaser track Necro Love, whilst Spiritual f. Succubus had a more nightmarish fairground swirl that added an extra claustrophobic layer to their already thrilling sound, with first single The Snoop having a softer, more dancefloor friendly focus which will appeal more to fans of Xymox or She Past Away.

4 Black Angel – Kiss of Death

Matt Vowles’ Black Angel project goes from strength to strength: having released debut album The Widow at the end of 2019, Vowles returned with follow-up Kiss of Death barely six months later, an equally strong set of musical earworms that effortlessly recreate the most popular elements of 80’s goth. Haunting guitar lines, classic chord progressions, multi-layered vocals and fantastic state-of-the-art production combine to create an album which,  like its title track, brings to mind Steinman-era Sisters tinged with the gothbilly sounds of Shadow of Love-era Damned. Vowles always baulks at any comparison to Billy Idol, but the strong focus on melody and the superb production makes this a worthy compliment rather than a detraction for what is arguably the most potentially commercially viable of all the projects featured in this Top 50, and a great gateway act for new fans of the scene. A barely-discernible change of vocalist – Robert Steffen’s more operatic approach replaced with the more authentically alternative tones of Corey Landis – has left the band stronger as a unit and although the pandemic put paid to plans for more live work, Black Angel will deservedly be a name on most promoters’ wishlists for 2021 after two stunning albums of perfect modern gothic rock.

3 Sonsombre – Highgate

Brandon Pybus must be one of the hardest working guys on the goth scene, whether maintaining a strong social media presence to boost the Sonsombre fanbase, writing and recording new material, or collaborating with other artists from around the world. Sonsombre’s latest album One Thousand Graves was their best yet, moving ever away from their sources (Fields of The Nephilim, The Wake, Nosferatu etc) to showcase their own distinctive sound. Now clearly more a band than a one-man project, Sonsombre’s lockdown live stream sets were always high quality and featured tracks from their three album career but focusing on the darker, heavier and more innovative material which subtly drew more on Pybus’ own death metal past. Highgate was an excellent case in point, starting with a spooky church organ and music box intro, with jagged, discordant guitar riffs taking over before exploding into minor key malevolence with more classic gothic rock overtones. Song dynamics and structure remain a key strength, with anthemic choruses and dramatic atmosphere essential elements of any Sonsombre song. With a new album Revival ready for release in 2021, Sonsombre look set to make the Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog top 10 for a fourth successive year!

2 The Kentucky Vampires – Moon Rays

2020 album Crimson Curse moved The Kentucky Vampires from the ranks of deathrock prospects to major league gothic contenders, showcasing an expanded sonic range and depth which resulted in an album to return to again and again. A couple of the tracks featured on their EP released at the end of 2019 (and made our Top 10 last year), but the new tracks were a judicious mix of the up-tempo melodic graveyard deathrock of the first album (eg Saint Vincent) and a slower, more resonant and lyrical sound with a fuller gothic sound. The addition of Motuvius Rex’s bass had fleshed out what was a slightly trebly mix, and its rich sonorous tone, reminiscent of vintage The Cure, enhances the lullabylike Moon Rays, with Zac Campbell’s shimmering guitar lines and Abbas Marler’s wonderfully lilting vocal creating a perfect gothic fusion which was typical of the album’s best tracks.

1 Then Comes Silence – Devil

Swedish captains of post-punk Then Comes Silence blew away all other contenders with a stunning 2020, releasing a superbly accomplished and polished album in Machine, releasing a couple of online quarantine covers and putting on a string of beautifully shot live performances. Machine ran the gamut of post-punk musical styles but always with Alex’s honeyed baritone, Jonas’ syncopated drumming and the twin guitar duelling of the highly experienced newcomers Hugo and Mattias to the fore, as on this featured track, Devil. Pretty much every track on the album could be released as a single, always the sign of a classic album, from singalong darkwave songs like Apocalypse Flare to the epic soundscapes of Kill It. Then Comes Silence certainly killed it in 2020, and are the Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog band of the year.

 

 

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - part 9, 10 - 6

 

Into the Goth/Post-Punk Revival blog Top 10 with five very solid albums which do not disappoint. All start strongly and as with all classic albums, get even better, saving the best until last and ending with a fantastic finale that always marks out a classic album. As befits this blog, the top ten artists are all primarily guitar-based and feature driving basslines, strong vocals, insistent beats and guitar FX aplenty.

 

 

10 The Wake - Figurine

Second-wave superstars The Wake almost single-handedly resuscitated the genre at a point where it seemed to be dying a natural death in the early 90’s with their stunning Unmasked album, splitting in the mid-90’s before reforming around a decade ago and releasing a couple of low-key singles and making a much higher profile splash with their 2020 comeback album Perfumes and Fripperies. Whilst early tracks on the album like Marry Me delighted those simply looking for God’s Own Medicine part 3, the reworkings of those intermediate singles Rusted and Emily Closer, plus the album’s outstanding final pairing of the Pumpkins-influenced Big Empty and the bombastically slow and stately Figurine hint at an exciting new direction for the band responsible for classics like Nazarene, Watchtower and Harlot nearly three decades ago.

9 Delphine Coma - Tension

2018’s debut album Leaving The Scene established US act Delphine Coma as major new players in the darkwave world, with lead single Is This Forever making many end of year lists. Sophomore set Tortuosa, released this year on Swiss Dark Nights took things to a new level, with singer Ashe Ruppe’s vocals, heard to great effect on Kill Shelter’s In Decay (number one on this countdown two years ago), enhancing a wide range of strong darkwave pieces from upbeat tracks like Secondary Eyes to more introspective songs like the album-closing Tension, a wonderfully-atmospheric Bowiesque slab of drone-led gothgaze/darkwave.

8 Guillotine Dream - Vermillion

80’s goth fans Guillotine Dream were as well-known for their sense of humour as their Nephilimistic musical charm until this year’s wonderful Damaged and Damned album which showed them increasingly evolving their own sound. Recorded in just two days, the album had a wonderfully raw live-in-the-studio feel best exemplified by album-closer Vermillion, released as a teaser single with a great Blair Witch-style video. Wonderfully overdriven guitar, growled vocals, dirty bass and Dawnrazor drums combine spectacularly in a perfectly spooky piece of magically pure gothic rock.

7 Mayflower Madame - Vultures

Some albums have an intensity and a flow which forces you to stop what you’re doing and focus solely on the emotionally-draining aural assault on the brain. Siouxsie and The Banshees’ first two albums had that effect on me in the late 1970’s, Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain was another example from the mid-1980’s and Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s 2020 Prepared for a Nightmare on Icy Cold records is a future classic in a very similarly dramatic and overbearing vein to the latter, with its latent psychedelia and shoegaze tendencies. The album’s claustrophobic intensity is heightened by the sequencing of the songs which take the listener on a distorted journey through a restless night full of nightmares, half-woken visions and the intense relief of reawakening to the relief that the night is over. Wilfully singular in their approach, Mayflower Madame are a deeply rewarding obsession.

6 Raskolnikov – Faut pas chier Albert Roche.

One of the YouTube comments on the full album upload of Raskolnikov’s Lazy People Will Destroy You album states that the author has been listening to music for over thirty years but had never before found an album where they loved every track. Such hyperbole does not sound misplaced when streaming this outstanding album which showcases a variety of musical styles, leading one to presume that the band has a varied record collection spanning the entire forty years of the post-punk genre, from The Cure and The Chameleons through Spiritualised and Ride to Muse, Interpol and Editors, with even more commercial influences like Coldplay and Snow Patrol thrown in. Whilst this might sound like a nightmarish pick’n’mix hybrid, the reality is a wonderfully melodic and well-paced set of original songs which defy the usual pigeonholing and deserve a wider audience.

 

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - part 8, 15 - 11

With no new studio work from the likes of scene giants She Past Away, Whispering Sons, Antipole and Der Himmel Uber Berlin, 2020 could have been a musical disappointment, but such was the breadth and depth of talent on display that those making the Goth/Post-Punk Revival top 15 brought out their best music to date, and these next five selections, from traditional goth rock to electro punk, again hint at the range of sounds to be enjoyed by fans of the genre.

 

15 Raven Said – She Comes To Me

Russian duo Raven Said are quite possibly the world’s most goth act ever, and their 2020 album Beyond The Darkest Hour brimmed with a confident, multi-layered gothic rock that soon made waves thousands of miles away from their native Ekaterinburg. Steeped in gothic musical and cultural history, Andy and Maria live the gothic lifestyle 24/7 and pour everything into their music, patiently explaining their vision to less scholarly interviewers. Maria’s synths and Andy’s guitar lines and often semi-whispered vocals create a potent mix, as here on the single She Comes To Me, hinting at greater things to come from one of Eastern Europe’s finest ensembles.

14 Glasszone –  The Lighthouse

Glasszone continue the great tradition of French wave music which dates back to the days of Jad Wio, Asylum Party and Mary Goes Round in the late 1980’s. Following up their 2019 album Garden of Glass, the Restless Nights EP featured an up-tempo title track, but atmospheric slowburners like The Lighthouse and The Last Time showed the true depth of the Glasszone sound.

13 Horror Vacui - Frustration

Italian anarcho deathrock outfit Horror Vacui returned in 2020 with their fourth and best album to date, Living For Nothing, full of galloping bass and jagged shards of guitar to create a series of excellent songs which never stray too far from the classic gothic template, like Frustration. Although only half an hour long in total, Living For Nothing delivered more punch than many albums twice the length.

12 Into Grey - Bloom

US post-punk/coldwave solo project Into Grey enjoyed a prolific 2020, releasing two excellent EPs of well-rounded “miserygoth”, Into Grey and Picture Perfect, as well as a series of individual tracks all released via Bandcamp. Bloom rattled along at high speed and had a Sonic Youth detuned vibe with dark twang atmospherics and a haunting and vulnerable vocal. Introspection at its finest, Into Grey is the highest placed debut act in this year’s countdown.

11 The Guilt - Stick To Your Guns

Swedish electro-punk act The Guilt were one of those artists whose place in this countdown was in doubt given that they operate at the very extremes of the genre (rather like Bob Vylan, who were ultimately just the wrong side of the line, being more punk than post-punk), but the post-punk guitar vibe and coldwave synth base swung the decision in their direction. The 2020 album Hot Knives is arguably one of the strongest selection of songs I’ve heard all year, with in-your-face vocals from the sassy Emma over Tobias’ whipsmart beats and licks. If you’ve not heard this album you’re in for a treat – think The Ting Tings meets Kas Product with a vocal power and energy that makes Beth Ditto sound like she’s singing nursery rhymes in comparison.

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - pt 7, 20 - 16

 

We’ve finally reached this year’s Goth/Post-Punk Revival Top 20 of 2020, and all the remaining projects are to be congratulated on putting together music of such high quality that selecting just the one track for this countdown was a real dilemma, and in many cases the identity of the chosen song changed several times between draft and publication. Just the first two tracks alone show the diversity of sounds available within this broad third wave of the goth/post-punk scene, but all selections share a commitment to musical perfection which was evident in so much new music this year.

20 Slow Danse With The Dead – One Tear Drop

New Mexico-based solo project Slow Danse With The Dead released an almost bewildering range of releases in 2020, from work-in-progress to quality compilations like the self-titled (and quickly sold out) cassette release. Firmly in the “miserygoth” genre, SDWTD’s lugubrious baritone vocal and maudlin lyrics take the listener on a journey deep into the soul. Songs like the funereal He Speaks Too Much recall Suffering For Kisses at their best, whilst One Tear Drop has the simplicity and raw edges of mid-period Joy Division.

19 The Black Capes – Welcome To The Necroclub

Greek goth rockers The Black Capes promise unapologetically metallic goth rock with a capital “G--- R---”. Lead singer Alex S Wamp has a voice deep and powerful enough to dominate proceedings, and the excellent production on the album helps to elevate its sound above the genre norm. For the single release of Welcome To The Necroclub, The Black Capes recruited additional vocal support from Brandon (Sonsombre), Abbas (The Kentucky Vampires), Nikolaou (Cold Remembrance) and Veronica (Death Loves Veronica), further raising their profile on the goth scene.

18 The Secret French Postcards – Kiss Away

More exquisite perfection from Swedish band The Secret French Postcards, whose album Colours whilst not spectacularly different from their previous releases, served as the best statement yet of their musical vision. Drenched in sumptuous guitars and with the velvet tonsils of Olli Ohlander weaving dreampop tales of love and loss, each song, like Kiss Away featured here, is perfectly executed and brilliantly produced by Pedro Code. Fans of melodic post-punk bands like The Chameleons will love the reassuring warm embrace of the goth lite aesthetic of one of 2020’s most consistent albums.

17 Shadow Assembly - Plaything

After his 2019 collaboration Ghostcrawl with Brandon Pybus (Sonsombre), Michael Louis worked with a wider variety of vocalists this year for his second album under the Shadow Assembly banner. This enabled him to paint with a broader musical palette, in particular on standout track Plaything featuring the ethereal vocals of Marselle Hodges on one of the strongest melodies of the year (warning: you’ll be humming this chorus for months). One YouTube commenter said that it sounds like Kate Bush fronting Rosetta Stone….now there’s an idea for a collaboration! 

16 Byronic Sex & Exile- Eternity

If Andrew Eldritch was the undisputed Leeds Godfather of Goth in the 1980’s, that title has surely passed to the ubiquitous Joel Heyes, whose excellent one man goth act Byronic Sex & Exile released the stunning Cu Foc album in 2020. Whilst not entertaining his many social media followers with tales of workplace woes or medical mishaps, the organiser of the Goth City festival is a keen student of Transylvanian history and culture, which was the inspiration for this BS&E album. Final track Eternity was a heady mix of Black Sabbath and Bauhaus at their most bucolic/acoustic, with that goth torch song vibe that Nick Cave has tried and failed to accomplish over his lengthy solo career. Heyes’ candle-lit one-man bedsit performances were one of the lockdown musical highlights, and live shows in 2021 will be unmissable.

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog - Top 50 of 2020, pt 6 25 - 21

 Into the second half of the countdown for 2020 we go, with five more musical offerings more than worthy of your consideration which showcase the broad spectrum of music covered by the contemporary goth/post-punk label. Whilst the spartan bedit misanthropy of "miserygoth" and the punishing beats of synth-driven hard handbag darkwave EBM may seem to have little in common, they share a sense of the "other", a fascination with the darker aspects of the soul and an obsession with a time in the late seventies early eighties where the nihilism of punk clashed with the narcissism of glam and the modernity of the futurists to create a new musical and cultural aesthetic which has stood the test of time.

25 Rosetta Stone - Shock

Last year’s Seems Like Forever re-established Rosetta Stone as one of the top players on the goth scene, with Porl King’s “greatest hits” from his Miserylab project reworked and beefed up under the RS banner for Cleopatra Records. Cryptology, Rosetta Stone’s new album of 2020, came as a real surprise to all but the band’s closest followers when it was rush-released in the middle of the year. Although inevitably lacking some of the strength in depth of its predecessor, whose tracks had been written over the best part of a decade, Cryptology was more homogeneous in its approach and had several standout tracks, of which the heavily Red Lorry Yellow Lorry influenced Shock is one, with the more minimalist (and therefore more Miserylab) Smoke and Mirrors also outstanding.

24 Deathtrippers - Reach

The sky’s the limit for this Leeds project who play uber-cool dancefloor-friendly gothgaze darkwave not unlike (the sadly-defunct) Holygram but with their own unique twist. Deathtrippers issued only two new tracks in 2020, Alive and Reach on separate compilations, but both bristled with a rare drive and energy and hint at great things for a project whose profile is still somewhat lower than their talent merits. Definitely one to watch. Reach, on the Goth City Wasteland compilation, appropriately has a bit of a The Sisters of Mercy vibe with the buzzing bassline and reverb guitar riff (think Train), and purchasing the Wasteland compilation also has the advantage of contributing to a refugee and asylum-seeker charity.

23 Suffering For Kisses - Ashes

Seattle artist Tony D’Oporto’s Suffering For Kisses have been one of the main proponents of the “miserygoth” strand of the genre over the past couple of years, with the singer’s trademark deadpan delivery of lyrics of lost love over an often hyper-minimalist backing creating a real sense of desolation and despair, yet somehow having an uplifting effect on the listener. Gloom doesn’t get much more lugubrious than this, and the funereal Ashes was probably SFK’s "lowlight" of the year.

22 Dark - Nightmare

From Germany comes Dark, a new Hamburg-based project championed by Yami Spechie which exploded onto the scene only in the summer but immediately made waves with the hugest, hardest and darkest dancefloor beats since the heyday of EBM in the mid-1980’s, so powerful they make Front 242 sound like Erasure in comparison. Nightmare was *the* track for bedroom DJ’s to spin on their never-ending Twitch livestreams, with its spookily strict beat and baritone vocal creating a real earworm of an alternative club anthem.The ensuing mini-album showed that Nightmare was no one-off, making Dark one of the coolest new discoveries of 2020.

21 Altar de Fey – Mercy’s Kiss

Veterans of the deathrock scene Altar de Fey continue to raise the bar for those new to the genre. Their 2020 EP release And May Love Conquer All release bristled with Kent Cates’ graveyard guitar, chilling chord changes, Jake Hout’s typically histrionic vocals and a punky energy whilst maintaining a high quality of musical and lyrical craftsmanship on one of the most pleasing releases of the year, expertly produced by bassist Skot Brown. Lead track Mercy’s Kiss had an intro that more than nodded in the direction of genre kings Der Himmel Uber Berlin (who sadly didn’t release anything in 2020) before bursting into a chorus with both a lyric and a melody that Wayne Hussey would have been proud of.

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - Part 5, 30 - 26

Into this year’s Top 30, the first five selections feature a couple of goth/post-punk supergroups and a fair few individuals who have been around the scene since the very start, but are still capable of producing work of a standard that bears comparison to the best that impetuous and carefree youth can muster. Encouraged by their success, perhaps more of the elder statesmen and women of the movement will venture into the studio in 2021. Here's hoping ...

30 Capitals - Satellite

I’m cheating a little including this specific track as it appeared on an album originally recorded two years ago, but was only available on Bandcamp (and therefore came to my attention) for the first time in 2020, but Capitals, from the Mexican city of Guadalajara also released a new single later in the year which would also have made the Top 50. Minimalist post-punk of a style that would appeal to fans of Joy Division, Capitals’ music is uplifted by some unexpectedly jolly guitar lines, as here on Satellite.

29 Black Chapel – House of Ghosts

Hastily-renamed “goth supergroup” Black Chapel, from the movement’s home turf of Yorkshire (UK), boast former (and in some cases, current) members of BFG, Expelaires and principally The Danse Society, and unleashed a peach of an album this year (originally under the name, The Society) with Hell Is Waiting. The album’s title hints at the contents, a spiritual follow-up to TDS’s classic 1984 album Heaven Is Waiting. Swirling keyboards, angular, haunting guitar lines and Paul Gilmartin’s powerful drumming are very much to the fore on th aetmospheric House of Ghosts, as on other tracks, with Leeds legend Paul “Grape” Gregory’s distinctive vocal adding a further unsettling yet familiar layer. Black Chapel build on the musical foundations of classic 1980’s The Danse Society and keep the band’s original spirit alive by creating a new and distinctive strand of the goth/post-punk revival.

28 Mary – Die Before Death

Canadian project Mary built on the promise of a couple of encouraging darkwave EPs last decade with a now fully-formed sound and an excellent 2020 debut album, making podcast playlists the world over and becoming the name on everyone’s lips in the middle of the year. Title track Die Before Death has a fantastic gothgaze intro reminiscent of great 90’s bands like The God Machine and Catherine Wheel, and the whole song shows a classic sense of melody and musical dynamics that reminds me strangely in atmosphere of The Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored in parts, which can only ever be a good thing. Other tracks had more of a B-Movie/New Order/Cure vibe, showing the band’s range over a beautifully-crafted album for fans of the lighter side of darkwave.

27 This Eternal Decay – Future Anthem

Another post-punk “supergroup”, this time from Italy, This Eternal Decay typified the spirit of many bands in 2020, refusing to be brow-beaten and adapting the launch of their debut album to the “new normal” of a world under lockdown. Animated by the typically excellent pulsing bass of Pasquale Vico of the band Date At Midnight, TED’s album was a real darkwave delight, with driving beats and soaring melodies, and even a guest appearance by Alex from Then Comes Silence on the appropriately-named track Silence. Future Anthem builds on the classic three-note Bela Lugosi’s Dead bassline with something a lot more unhinged, channeling the energy of The Three Johns in a track that lives up to its name.

26 The Psychedelic Furs – Come All Ye Faithful

The first new Furs album in roughly thirty years was awaited with a mixture of dread and anticipation, but even those in the latter category had their expectations hugely exceeded by the sheer energy, invention and drive of a release recently announced as Vive Le Rock’s album of the year. Drawing on everything from funk to jazz, dreampop to post-punk, the album shimmered where others fade with Richard Butler on top lyrical and vocal form. Their place on end-of-year lists is anything but a sympathy vote or a tugging of the forelock to old masters - this album rocked. With its parping and wailing sax, funkily-syncopated backbeat, razor sharp lyrics and stereo channel changing, Come All Ye Faithful is perhaps the most avant-garde selection in this year’s Goth/Post-Punk Revival countdown, not bad for guys in their early sixties. Respect is due. Are you listening, Andrew Eldritch?

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Top 50 of 2020 - Pt 4, 35 - 31

 Part four of the The Goth/Post-Punk Revival blog’s Top 50 of 2020 features several bands whom I first discovered via various bloggers and DJ’s, and I want to thank all those promoting the scene for the great work they do in helping fellow aficionados to find quality new music. There’s so much out there that you sometimes need a trusted guide to navigate your way through the mounds of what one might charitably call “work in progress” to find the one or two golden nuggets released each day somewhere across the planet. So take a bow Ken and co at Sounds and Shadows, Azy and Maus at Obscura Undead, Jason, Tzina and the team at Absolution, DJ Skullgirdle, those at Isolation, Frontiere Rock and Songs of Preys, Mick Mercer, Indrek, Post-Punk.com, Darko The Post Punker, WL/WH, Sideline, Clint Dao, George Chlioumis, Sound In The Distance and so many others who work hard to keep the scene alive.

Anyway, back to the countdown, and where better to start the next instalment than with a band from “goth city” itself, Leeds:

 

 

35 Klammer – I Don’t Know What It Is

The first Leeds band of this year’s countdown also featured last year, again with a cover. Last year it was a punked-up Being Boiled, whereas it’s the late Pete Shelley who gets the Klammer treatment in 2020 with a version of one of the three singles from his seminal Homosapien album. I Don’t Know What It Is features the lovelorn lyrics and strong sense melody for which Shelley was infamous for a chief songwriter for Buzzcocks in the punk era, and although his early work as a solo artist didn’t enjoy commercial success, the Homosapien album was a big club hit as the Futurist movement gave way to the equally Bowie-influenced positive punk scene. Klammer’s version keeps the original’s subtleties whilst adding an edgier angle to emphasise its post-punk roots, and features on a compilation tribute album raising funds to establish a permanent legacy for the great man.

https://notmurderedrecords.bandcamp.com/track/i-dont-know-what-it-is

34 Icy Men – Raindrops

Ukranian darkwave duo Icy Men were back with a strong sophomore album in 2020, building on the promise and word-of-mouth success of their debut on Cold Transmission. Low Light was an excellent album full of string-bending minor key melancholy, wonderfully unpredictable basslines and an atmosphere as cold as the band’s name, with this track Raindrops, a typically thrilling example, showcasing a genuine beauty in the overall bleakness.

33 The Funeral March of The Marionettes - Useless

One of the features of the gothic revival has been the re-emergence of a host of bands schooled amidst the key gothic tropes of the late 1980’s, like wonderfully-named US band The Funeral March of The Marionettes, who take their moniker from the classical Gounod piece with a similar title which was the theme tune of the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 2020 single Useless (A Foolish Arrangement) with its Banshees guitar sequences, spooky rhythm section and understated vocal was a stunning return to form in a year when the band also released some previously unavailable tracks from 1993.

32 The Midnight Computers – Tears

French act The Midnight Computers’ mini-album Anxious, released on the ever-reliable Swiss Dark Nights label was largely competent but unremarkable synthwave fare, but Tears featured a scuzzy bassline and a driving beat which elevated it not only above the rest of this album but over the majority of releases in this crowded genre. The video also hints at the passion and energy of live shows from darkwave bands which we have all missed so much in 2020.

31 1983 – Baile de Mascaras (Dissonancia sessions)

Brazilian band 1983 have been slowly raising their profile since their debut releases in 2018, and this year they performed a live Dissonancia studio session released simultaneously as a YouTube video and as a download via Bandcamp. Led by singer/guitarist Dennis Sinned/Monteiro, the trio operate very much in territory which will be familiar to fans of Pornography era The Cure, and this live session containing some of their better tracks such as O Corpo and Baile de Mascaras hints at bright future for a band who rightly prioritise music over image.

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - part 3, 40 - 36

 

This third instalment of the Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 countdown begins with arguably the most controversial choice of them all, Marilyn Manson. Some will baulk at the suggestion that the 90’s prince of vaudeville industrial glam’s musical output fits into either of the genres under discussion, whilst others, with arguably more justification will state that in 2020 of all years, with the real issues (Covid-19, BLM etc) that the world has had to face, that the mock horror and tired shock tactics of an artist whose star is decidedly on the wane have become so far removed from the zeitgeist that it would be better instead to promote another artist who didn’t quite make the Top 50 this year, like The Birthday Massacre, Pilgrims of Yearning,  Bootblacks, Vlimmer, Orcus Nullify, Twin Tribes or Paranormales. This feeds into the wider argument as to whether one should judge the current output of past goth stars on their merit, place them on a pedestal and give them an automatic pass to the top table regardless of quality, or rule them out of contention on the grounds that they’ve had their time and are unlikely to reach earlier peaks once more. Just for the record, I’m choosing the former path, and a couple of other names familiar to fans of the first two waves of our beloved genre will also appear in this rundown. But for now, on with numbers 40 – 36…

40 Marilyn Manson – Red, Black and Blue

The days when a new Marilyn Manson album was a major musical event are long gone, but the mall goth superstar always has a couple of decent tunes per album up his sleeve and his 2020 release We Are Chaos is no exception. Whilst perhaps not the “masterpiece” which Manson himself claimed, tracks like Red, Black and Blue hinted (after a rambling introduction – I’d advise starting it at 1:15) at the visceral rush that accompanied his seminal releases around the turn of the millennium, with skull-crushing riffs and sleaze-fest lyrics to the fore. Although shunned by most goths (with some justification) as a risible posturing charlatan, the pale emperor still knows his way around a good chorus.

39 Instant Lake – Delicate Obscenity

If any song in this year’s top 50 typifies the post-punk scene sound of the past years, it’s this track from Italians Instant Lake’s sophomore album Dystodream, on the appropriately-named Brazilian label Wave Records. There are hints of coldwave, darkwave, gothgaze, industrial and most other strands of the current broader gothic spectrum, with the classic reverbed simple guitar riff, driving EBM beat, echoing baritone vocal, buzzing descending bassline and an overriding atmosphere of menace, midway between Front 242 and Holygram. Good work.

38 Cliff and Ivy – Will To The Power

Touted as Alaska’s premier goth duo, an accolade for which there is surely not much competition, Cliff and Ivy play a powerful yet tongue-in-cheek brand of drum-machine driven gothic rock, with Cliff’s angled powerchords the perfect backing for Ivy’s effortlessly cool but slightly unhinged vocal. Unashamedly 80’s influenced, Cliff and Ivy have successfully mined the same furrow for the past decade, but this year they really came to greater prominence thanks in part to some excellent live streamed performances during the lockdown.

37 Iamtheshadow – Pitchblack

Pitchblack is the title track from Pedro Code’s Iamtheshadow project’s 2020 album and I expect it to feature towards the very top of end of year lists of those whose preference lies in full-production dancefloor-targeted synth-based coldwave electro-goth. The Portuguese act has produced a strong set of deep-vocal EBM-based dark club tracks with a BPM which will fill alternative club night floors across the globe and enhance Code’s reputation as one the genre’s foremost sonic terrorists.

36 Paar – Modern

A simple, repeated bass riff from the eight-to-the-bar Craig Adams school, fx-drenched guitar reminiscent of Whispering Sons and a strong female vocal drive this wistful track which mixes power and fragility in equal measures. The album from which it’s taken, Die Notwendigkeit der Notwendigkeit hints at a band still in search of a definitive sound, but Modern is an ideal template from which to work in the future.

The Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 - Pt 2, 45 - 41

 If the first five selections in the Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog Top 50 of 2020 hinted at the sheer range of music produced by artists working within and on the fringes of the genre, this next five should underline the depth of talent and their collective desire to constantly expand the gothic sonic palette. Taken together, our first ten selections have featured artists from Chile to Turkey and from Mexico to Belarus as well as more traditional goth hotspots like the UK and the US, and everything from solo projects to bands featuring scene veterans. The goth/post-punk scene is truly a global phenomenon, with the ultimate democracy of Bandcamp and YouTube meaning that anyone with genuine talent will quickly impress the many scene influencers, that small army of DJs, bloggers, vloggers and label bosses who are constantly promoting their latest finds.

So on with countdown, starting at number 45...

45 Kiss Of The Whip – Girl Made of Stars

KOTW is a one-man project from Baltimore musician Tristan Victor, and one of the more immediately goth-friendly artists on the currently very overcrowded minor key synthwave scene. High quality but simple song construction, sotto voce vocals, a memorably nagging guitar riff and the ambiance of a late-night Berlin underground club fuel this future dancefloor anthem, from autumn’s album We’re Not Here which features much more of the same, most notably on the excellently slightly off-kilter title track.

  

 

44. Molchat Doma – Otveta Net

Otveta Net is taken from Monument, the Belarusian trio’s third album, recorded and released during the pandemic, a release which solidifies the band’s place in the upper echelon of artists operating in the more melodic end of the coldwave genre. Metronomic drum machine beats and clean, mournful reverb guitar lines are the perfect backing for the bleakly romantic lyrics, the key elements of a seemingly universally appealing mix which has seen Molchat Doma rise from the relative obscurity of Minsk to all the best playlists in a relatively short timeframe and YouTube view counts that run into many millions, making them one of the big players on what is clearly the most popular strand of the genre at present.

43. Night Nail – BRNO

Tearing up the more traditional goth-tinged darkpop format that helped previous album LA Demons garner universal praise in the months after its release, the distinctive vocals of Brandon Robert and the musical backing of Justin Deaktivere have been put through the mixer (literally) by Kill Shelter’s Pete Burns to create a more diverse and ultimately more satisfying (if at times less immediate) end product which will appeal in particular to fans of the likes of Depeche Mode. More introspective than the previous album, March to Autumn from which BRNO is taken was (like many 2020 releases) an album which rewarded repeated playings (something many of us had plenty of time for this year), showing that Night Nail are in it for the duration.

 

42 Chaos Bleak – Grey Lady Walks

It’s a real personal pleasure to be able to include for the first time in one of these rundowns one of the real unsung heroes of goth, Trevor Bamford, who almost single-handedly kept the UK scene going as the flames threatened to extinguish in the early 1990’s with his Nightbreed label that ultimately brought the legendary Suspiria track Allegedly,Dancefloor Tragedy. Trevor’s own projects, from the competent early second generation band Every New Dead Ghost to the more recent Death Party UK have been reliable staples of the British goth scene, and side project Chaos Bleak seeks to reanimate the corpse of early 80’s positive punk, evoking the spirits of the likes of Play Dead and The March Violets. Grey Lady Walks, the projects eighth single released on Halloween, chugs along with a descending bassline, an underlying sense of menace and a beat which will get many quinquagenarian shoulders shimmying.

41 Detoxi – Beyond The Grave

The proto-gothic sound of 1981 is alive and well with Californians Detoxi, their 2020 release Beyond The Grave building on previous works with a spooky romantic tale which builds on the claustrophobic drama of legendary bands like UK Decay, play Dead and Sex Gang Children with some outstanding guitar work but with the thrilling addition of a naggingly melodic but distant vocal. It's one of those songs that you just know is going to be great from the opening bars then just gets better and better. If there’d been a whole album’s worth of this, Detoxi would have been rivalling the likes of Altar de Fey and Horror Vacui for the accolade of Deathrock release of the year, and in any other year this song would easily have made the Top 20.

Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog: Top 50 of 2020 - part 1

 Welcome to this year’s annual Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog countdown of the year’s best releases. As expected, this first year of the fifth decade of goth music proved to be particularly bountiful in terms of both quantity and quality, with the enforced lockdown seemingly increasing the flow of creative juices throughout the post-punk community. Indeed, so plentiful was this year’s crop that the annual Top 30 has been expanded to a Top 50, reflecting the strength in depth. Whereas in recent years a single outstanding track was enough to help an artist reach the Top 5, 2020 was such a great year that every artist in the Top 20 has produced a whole album whose consistency has a good chance of standing the test of time, something which has probably not occurred since the mid-1980’s.

So without any further ado it’s straight on to the first tranche of artists worthy of accolade, those featuring between numbers 50 and 46 in this first part of our countdown:

50 Lucida Fila – Crystal Virgin

Mexico has been far and away the most potent breeding ground for new goth music over the past decade, and self-proclaimed “Souls of the Night” Lucida Fila play no-nonsense 80's-rooted old school gothic rock which transcends linguistic and geographical boundaries. Having finally released their 2018 debut album on Bandcamp this year, as well as promoting their earlier Reborn EP on YouTube, December saw the release of the first genuinely new material in the past two years, with the release of teaser track Crystal Virgin. With music and lyrics by Damian Vazzmor, the track is full of full-on gothic riffs, swirling keyboard, dramatic vocals and a soaring chorus, plus the usual Gregorian chanted intro to set the tone - you get the idea. Nothing startlingly new then, but further evidence of the growing musical maturity of many Latin American goth projects.

Link to Crystal Virgin on Facebook

 

49 Motuvius Rex – Kentucke Darkness

As well as swelling the ranks of The Kentucky Vampires to a trio, in 2020 bassist Shahn Rigsby also released a fascinating solo EP entitled Sermo Vulgaris under his stage name Motuvius Rex. Drawing on influences from occult chanting to chaos magick, Rigsby skilfully weaves dense and mesemerising sonic tapestries which although far removed musically from his deathrock-influenced work with KV’s, retain a sense of power and majesty, doubtless assisted by the mixing and mastering skills of Vampires’ guitarist Zac Campbell at the control desk. With mandolin and duct flute to the fore (not a phrase usually associated with my reviews), Kentucke Darkness is a beat-driven trance-like call to arms which strays way beyond the narrow confines of trad goth but emotes the same atmospheric and emotional charm.

 

48 Mystic Priestess – Smoke and Mirrors

With the spooky font of their band logo incorporating not only a spider’s web but a dagger, Oakland’s Mystic Priestess uphold their state’s reputation as the home of all things deathrock, but for all the 60’s style overuse of reverb and angular chord sequences,the shouty female vocal is more reminiscent of the genuinely (and indeed,  barely) post-punk likes of Brigandage back in the days before the term “goth” was in wide usage. The band’s first three EPs have been pressed on their eponymous debut (compilation) album, with opener Smoke and Mirrors the standout track.

 

47 Diavol Strain – Sonrisas Fabricadas

Back to Latin America for another musical lesson in gothic history, with cutting edge Chilean duo Diavol Strain, at the forefront of placing gender identity as a key issue in modern gothic music, producingly a stunning cover of arguably the best-known South American goth track of the 1980’s, Sonrisas Fabricadas, originally by Argentinian band Euroshima. Wonderfully detuned guitars and a slouchy bass rumble propel this low-fi, low-slung but full-force sonic assault, and hint at great things for Diavol Strain in the future.

 

46 Elz and The Cult - Horrified

The Turkish electro-goth trio returned with a sophomore album in 2020 which with its accompanying videos was both visually stunning and musically right on the money, with whip-smart beats and the sharpest EBM rhythms outside of Belgium, making Goldfrapp sound like Yazoo in comparison. This blog doesn’t usually give much house room to artists without a healthy guitar-based element, but when the finished product is as dark dancefloor friendly as Elz and the Cult’s album, an exception has to be made. Cold Transmission records have become ultra-reliable arbiters of contemporary post-punk good taste, and the prominent presence of Elz and The Cult on their roster should tell you all you need to know about these Istanbul-based self-professed Matilyn Manson-obsessed “industrial trash freaks”.

Tracks 45 to 41 of our Top 50 will be published tomorrow!