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!