Hororis II - A tribute to The Sisters of Mercy and The Sisterhood (CD on Unknown Pleasures Records)

 I can remember the day back in 1993 when I bought my first tribute album to The Sisters of Mercy, First and Last and Forever, which was released on what had quickly become the go-to label for goth-related issues and reissues, Cleopatra Records of California. Not quite knowing what to expect – barely any bands had yet attempted to cover any of The Sisters’ songs at that time, although many had mimicked their style, both musically and visually – I put the CD in the player and found my senses assaulted by the wild electronic punk of Automatic Head Detonator’s take on Black Planet. Whilst noting the familiar lyrics, the rest of the song had been radically reworked to the point of being almost unrecognisable, a memorable beginning to what was in fact a mediocre overall album where pale imitation became the order of the day, with a few notable exceptions, such as The Shroud’s low-key ‘cello and female vocal take on Alice.

The tone was set for a series of future tribute albums to the band (a German tribute, Monochrome, surfaced two years later) and an increasing array of bands wanting to acknowledge their musical debt to Eldritch and co, whilst handily boosting their own profile in the process. Relatively well-known artists joined the fray, and some of these better-known versions, by Cradle of Filth, Paradise Lost and Jyrki of the 69 Eyes for example, were compiled earlier this year on Black Waves of Adrenochrome.

So what makes Honoris II worthy of attention in a tribute album genre which has long outlived its novelty value? The answer is largely to be found in the identity of its compiler, Pedro Peñas Robles, founding owner of Unknown Pleasures Records, a label responsible for some of the most exciting releases on the goth scene over the past few years, from Kill Shelter’s dancefloor-ready darkwave classic Damage and the shimmering reverberating gothgaze of Antipole’s Northern Flux to the full-on angular deathrock goth mayhem of Der Himmel über Berlin’s Chinese Voodoo Dolls. A DJ and musician himself who has been active on the scene for well over three decades, PPR personally invited the bands to participate, and largely also selected most of the songs, playing up to his obsessive, “my way or the highway” stereotype – qualities that have also of course been attributed to Andrew Eldritch himself.

A longstanding and genuine fan of the band, PPR’s love and in-depth knowledge of The Sisters’ oeuvre is evident in the selection of songs – for example there’s no Alice, Temple of Love or This Corrosion, just more obscure album tracks and b-sides beloved of the band’s more hardcore fanbase: Marian, Nine While Nine, Some Kind of Stranger, On The Wire and Heartland. On The Wire is perhaps the most appropriate selection, as all tribute albums walk a very narrow tightrope, as there is an inevitable dichotomy: if the songs are too close to the original, what is the point of the cover version? And if it’s so different that it loses the original vibe and feeling of the song, then failure is almost guaranteed, although Nouvelle Vague’s Marian is a much-admired exception to this rule.

As all of the artists on this sumptuously-produced CD – Eldritch would surely approve of the attention to detail and quality of design of the cover, with the lettering in gold leaf and a Gustav Doré image at the centre – are clearly themselves huge fans of TSOM, the overall effect is as much Veneris as Honoris – that is, even the most respected of bands on the current scene end up tweaking, rather than reinventing, the original songs.

There are few better contemporary bands than Delphine Coma, the Kill Shelter/Antipole collaboration and Leeds act Deathtrippers, yet their contributions here (Amphetamine Logic, Nine While Nine and Burn respectively), although spirited updates of the original tracks with novelty endings, bring little genuinely new to the table. Professions of faith, recognitions of musical debts owed, acts of devotion, yes. But these bands’ own thrillingly original recent recordings say far more about the ongoing influence of The Sisters of Mercy than these competently straight cover versions ever could (and can be sampled here, here and here).

The reticence of these bigger names on the current scene to take more liberties with The Sisters of Mercy’s compositions is all the more surprising when you consider Eldritch’s own cavalier attitude to other peoples’ songs. The stentorian gloom of The Sisters’ Gimme Shelter, the bombastic pomp of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and the irreverent dash through Jolene all proved the theory that you shouldn’t cover a song unless you can radically improve it.

Covering TSOM songs comes with the additional difficulty of how to attempt the vocals. Eldritch is reviled by many critics because of his idiosyncratic singing style, but the many failed attempts by other artists to cover his songs are testament to the difficulty faced in attempting to better the drama, the emotion and the power of his original TSOM vocal. Some of the tracks on this new compilation fall down on that score: Selfishadows’ Marian has some very heavily accented English and some unorthodox phrasing, Swesor Bhrater’s otherwise promising On The Wire is let down by a Depeche Mode style vocal which crushes the vulnerability and fragility of the original Eldritch performance, whilst the reforming A Wedding Anniversary lather their muscular Giving Ground with a melodramatic vocal better suited to musical theatre (or perhaps a H.I.M. tribute album).

Others are more successful. The “whisper to a strained shout” dramatic range of Opium Dream Estate’s singer on Some Kind of Stranger is a brave attempt, and the overall folky low-fi Levellers feel makes for one of the more interesting tracks on the album. Versari’s arrangement of Heartland also deserves credit, stripping the song back and them smothering it in guitar feedback and harmonics. But the twin highlights for me were The Raudive’s take on Colours and Years of Denial’s tongue-in-cheek Poison Door, which reinvents the song as a highly effective dark electro dancefloor stomper, with a Gina X vibe straight from a seedy Berlin nightclub. The Raudive apparently selected Colours himself as his choice of cover, and the 9 minute 38 second version on the CD is superb, building slowly with increasingly complex layers of sound and fitting new motifs to the stark original, endowing it with an epic cinematic soundscape quality which is (heretical thought ahoy!) arguably superior to the original.

As well as being available on this limited-edition CD (350 copies), Honoris II is also being released on cassette (with accompanying booklet) and pre-order gold vinyl whilst the final few copies of the CD are available from Bandcamp.

Album Review: Byronic Sex & Exile - Unrepentant Thunder

 With his Byronic Sex & Exile project, over the past five years Joel Heyes has established himself at the forefront of the UK goth scene, a position enhanced by the growing profile of the Goth City annual festival and associated charity compilation albums which he curates, and his growing international reputation is sure to be further enhanced by this week’s release of the new Byronic Sex & Exile album, Unrepentant Thunder.

Of all of the EPs and albums released under the BS&E moniker so far, Unrepentant Thunder is not only the most accomplished but also the most appropriate, dealing as it does with the life and death of the legendary romantic poet (Lord Byron) during his Greek sojourn. The dictionary defines the adjective “Byronic” as “alluringly dark, mysterious and moody”, and this is a perfectly apt description not only of the BS&E sound but also of Heyes himself, not a man to shy away from the long hair, frilly white shirt, black strides and boots look, although on this occasion he has pulled out all the stops by wearing something with an authentically Hellenic vibe for the promo photos (as can be seen on the video stills below), much in the way the likes of scene legends like Gary Numan and Peter Murphy are wont to do.

The serious, quasi-academic theme should come as little surprise, as the Goth City festival has always been about the wider culture as much as the music, and recent BS&E releases have tended to have a scholarly single theme, whether dark Yorkshire ghost tales or the Carpathian culture behind the Dracula story. BSE’s live work, whether al fresco on a dramatic windswept moor, candle-lit and performed from the musician own’s cosy boudoir during lockdown, or in the dimly lit velvet confines of a small cabaret club, have equally always been as much about theatrical performance art as much as the music, and Unrepentant Thunder will clearly translate well to the stage for the forthcoming UK tour, which will culminate in a Halloween weekend performance in Whitby at the Tomorrow's Ghosts festival.

A whirling dervish of creative ideas, Heyes has increasingly learned to edit his own work more critically, meaning that the sixteen tracks on the new album maintain the same high level of musical quality whilst exhibiting a refreshing variety of styles, from the solo poetry recital (I speak, Missolonghi) to the almost Lucretia-style bombastic goth rock (complete with infectious chorus) of Destiny, which follows the album’s overture, prophetically entitled To Die For Greece.

The album’s upliftingly sombre tone is set early on, with third track Until Freedom Dies building slowly, in the style of FOTN’s Psychonaut before opening out to feature a slightly dislocated Joy Division-esque guitar solo. Deicide Is Painless also builds significantly from a somewhat disconcerting beginning, a horror film two-note piano motif with strings effects growing into a genuinely epic slow-burning lament, one of the early highlights of the album as a whole.

With the first political poetical interlude (I speak) preceded by the more upbeat Death or Joy!, which has an almost sea shanty feel after an archetypal BS&E two chord organ intro, and 114 having an almost soft rock “lighters in the air” ambiance, the dramatic tension is somewhat lowered for a while, particularly on the somewhat incongruous Ecstasy (Lovers Make Better Goths), which not only lightens the tone lyrically, but also introduces a hard handbag dancefloor element which although highly effective, sits somewhat uneasily with the overall feel of the album.

The pace slows down again for Last Letter To Mao, featuring a piano introduction of the style currently made popular by the rapper Dave, and the second poem (from the pen of Lord Byron himself) Missolonghi, preparing the way for the brace of songs which are the undoubted high point of the album, A Boy Called Jihad, and the title track. The former begins with atmospheric thunder and features another spooky four-note sequence this time over a mesmerising drone, building to a crescendo with dramatic shouts of “War!” over an epic multi-layered backing worthy of 90’s goth legends London After Midnight. Unrepentant Thunder itself has a similarly bombastic if more uplifting feel, over a chord sequence more akin to Pachelbel’s Canon.

As befits a concept album about the death (from fever) of Byron after the siege of Missolonghi in the Greek War of Independence, the tone turns gradually more mellow on the following trio of tracks: Sweet Prince and its accompanying guitar solo has the spacey, dreamy feel of Pink Floyd, Hercules is another primarily synth-led and suitably epic ballad, whilst Requiem begins with a suitably sombre piano sequence before Heyes intones a funereal dirge which will appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance. The artist remains at the piano stool for the closing Castle In My Mind, which although based on a dark chord sequence, adds a final note of hope for gothic dreamers everywhere. Byron himself would surely have approved.

As with all Byronic Sex & Exile releases, purchasers (and there should be many) of Unrepentant Thunder are not only obtaining a first-rate album stuffed with great tunes, excellent musicianship and a range of moods, but witnessing an educational examination (by one the current scene's most committed and campaigning performers) of the wider purpose and influence of gothic culture and thought, through the story of one of the first true romantic heroes.

 The new album, along with other Byronic Sex & Exile releases, is available from the Goth City Bandcamp page.

 

The best August post-punk/goth releases 2021

 August 2021 sadly saw the passing of one of the key figures in the emergence of the original goth scene, Ollie Wisdom, the former singer of the band Specimen and one of those involved in the establishment of The Batcave club night in London. Punk had the 100 Club, the futurist/new romantic movement had Blitz, and finally, with the establishment of The Batcave, the UK capital's "positive punks" had somewhere to go where their style of music and dress sense would not only be tolerated, but expected.

Almost forty years on from those early beginnings, the current global goth scene revival goes from strength to strength, as the wider variety of the excellent new releases listed below will testify. In the same way as Wisdom’s club helped to unify a diverse collection of bands operating independently in a similar musical ambiance, in 2021 there is a growing army of DJ’s, an ever-expanding range of magazines, and a huge variety of review sites devoted to sharing the best of the scene, with the Sounds and Shadows Facebook group helping those active in the scene to help each other to progress.

Although, as an inveterately creative artist, Ollie Wisdom himself moved on to different musical pastures after the decline of the original scene, he would have surely have been impressed by its recent renaissance and on the new musical boundaries being tested across the sub-genres by those releasing new work this month.

This month's top picks (as usual grouped roughly by sub-genre rather than necessarily in order of merit):

1.       Slow Danse With The Dead – Babble of Despair

The latest six track release from the prolific Albuquerque based one man miserygoth project continues the artist’s high quality of monthly releases, with title track Babble of Despair a thrillingly lugubrious treat. With its catchy haunting guitar riff, up-tempo drum machine and bass backing and an echoing mysterious vocal, it conjures the same dark disco vibe as Mexican act Stranger and Lovers. Arguably his best track to date.

2.       Double Echo – Melody Saw

Another act with a cool dark disco feel are US/UK act Double Echo, whose latest album ☾ is out on Fabrika Records, and Melody Saw has the zeitgeist-capturing signature label sound of reverb guitar over an uptempo backbeat and cool synths, with Ellon Souter’s soaring deadpan vocal reminiscent of  90’s legends Dubstar’s Sarah Blackwood on a track which is the epitome of perfect dark pop.

3.       Purple Fog Side and Elsehow – End of Summer

Russian and Belgian musicians combine on this melancholy dark pop delight, with Pavel Zolin’s intricate dreamwave soundscapes the perfect backing for Piero Delux’s emotive vocal, with an anthemic chorus with lyrics which mournfully sum up the natural melancholy of this time of the year.

4.       Buried In Roses – I Float Alone

US act Buried In Roses’ spirited gothgaze update of the Julee Cruise classic I Float Alone is a highlight of their eight tack eponymous first release for Swiss Dark Nights. Imagine a 4AD act restyled for the dark twang generation and the appeal of the 90’s influenced North Carolina based band is immediately apparent. Bandcamp link

5.       Actors – Strangers

Canadian darkwave project Actors have generally played the 80’s wave revival card a little too straight for my personal liking (and they hardly need the minimal extra exposure I can give them), but Strangers, a teaser released for their forthcoming album Acts of Worship which was announced this month, is a wonderfully taut piece of dark pop built on a two note bass drone with a menacing undertone, sounding like a heyday (the The Bends) Radiohead covering Modern English’s 16 Days. This album already has impressive pre-sales and could be the one to propel them into the mainstream.

6.       The Cold Field – Reaching For Things You Cannot Hold

Australian duo The Cold Field are on top form on new album Hollows, combining a very strong set of songs with a multi-faceted sound which is a perfect summation of all that is so great about the current wave sound. Insistent but unobstrusive drum beats, driving bass that underpins the whole song, lush layers of synth alternating with more spartan single note effects, syncopated broken guitar arpeggios and a distant, almost disengaged echoing baritone vocal make for a mesmerizingly effective mix on lead single Reaching For Things You Cannot Hold, an excellent gateway to an album which won’t be far from the top of many Best Of.. lists come the end of the year.

7.       Sun of Mithra – IV

The first band from Azerbaijan to feature in one of these round-ups, Sun of Mithra’s new five-track release from their “filthy Baku basement” features this wonderfully epic instrumental which combines gothic bombast with shoegaze atmospherics on a mini-album which is otherwise engagingly experimental in tone. Bandcamp link

 

8.       Night Ritual - Eidolon

Eidolon is the lead track on the Philadelphia one man band’s new release Unbecoming, and its retro reverb-drenched charm is significantly enhanced by a deceptively simple but nagging guitar chord sequence, the overall effect being classic Rose of Avalanche given a low-fi dancefloor remix.

9.       Byronic Sex & Exile – At One With The Exiles

Whilst most artists would simply pre-release one track to tease their forthcoming album (in this case Unrepentant Thunder, which is about Lord Byron’s time [and death] in Greece) , UK goth national treasure Joel Heyes underlines his workaholic credentials with an excellent six-track digital mini-LP featuring not only three tracks from the autumn release but three other songs exclusive to this release, including a wonderful update of the 19^th century Italian protest song Bella Ciao (best known for the 1964 Yves Montand version) and the catchy At One With The Exiles, which is similar in vibe to the standout track Your Name On the Wind on the last full BS&E release, Cu Foc.

10.   The Spiritual Bat - Mission

Not content with uncovering the best new trad goth talent, the Swiss Dark Nights label has set up a new side label “Swiss Dark Nights Steel” to release stellar new recordings by more established acts, the first fruits of which are an excellent new EP by Italian veterans The Spiritual Bat, with lead track Mission’s typically everything-and-the-kitchen-sink female vocal Euro goth production smothered with an ample helping of improvised violin mayhem by New Model Army collaborator Shir-Ran Yinon.

11.   Chain Cult – We Are Not Alone

Greek trio Chain Cult released their catchy deathpunk single We Are Not Alone this month on red or black 7” vinyl. Beginning with a powerful driving bass riff of a style made famous by New Model Army, an exquisitely produced barrage of deathrock guitar dominates the song which features typically anthemic shouty vocals on what is one of the more powerful releases this month.

12.   The Engines – Puritans

From the wastelands of Hampshire (UK) come The Engines, whose new LP contains a great slice of contemporary grunge-goth in Puritans. With a fabulous turbocharged singalong chorus straight out of 1995, a fabulously disinterested female vocal from El Woodcock and some great guitar work from Merrin Hamilton, The Engines’ album is like a sassier version of early dark psych influenced Catatonia.

13.   Deliverance ft Zac Campbell – The Danger

Mexican trad goth rock band Deliverance’s excellent new album ASTRAL came out this month, with the highlight being this track which is sprinkled with the added six string stardust of The Kentucky Vampires’ Zac Campbell. A tight Lucretia-style bassline and Rui Delirio’s typically excitable vocal delivery make The Danger a chugging old school delight.

14.   Angel’s Arcana – Lord Of The Smoking Mirror

One of the most powerfully evocative tracks from the pomp of the original goth era was Fields of the Nephilim’s Vet For The Insane, famously featuring on the soundtrack of one episode of decade-defining stylish cop show Miami Vice, and Greek one-man occult goth project Angel’s Arcana conjures up its ghost in this sumptuously bombastic track from the new album The Reveries of Solitude, with beautifully echoing guitar arpeggios complementing a slow-burning rhythm section. Bandcamp link

15.   Guillotine Dream - Another

The end of the month saw the very welcome release of the teaser single from the forthcoming album Demigods from UK dark occult goth legends Guillotine Dream. Fans of Fields of The Nephilim will love this further refinement of the band’s sound after the “live in the studio” rawness of the last album. Arc’s vocals are stronger than ever, whether a low growl or a more echoey plaintive cry, whilst Mapk’s powerful drumming drives the song along. Lake’s hollow bass reverberates like a funeral death knell, providing the perfect platform for Arc’s subtle crescendo of guitar layers as the song progresses.

16.   A Pale Horse Named Death - Reflections Of The Dead

The third single from the forthcoming album Infernum in Terra was released this month, and again sees Sal Abruscato openly flirting with his Type O Negative roots in a slow-burning doomfest of descending basslines and vast sheets of guitar freezing fog accompanied by the usual distant slightly whiny vocal and Alice In Chains backing vocal close harmonies, although those averse to fretboard onanism might want to tune out after the first three magisterial minutes.

 

17.   Vazum – Votive

Hot on the heels of their highly acclaimed V+ album in the spring, Detroit duo Vazum are back with another great single, revamping and supercharging a track Rat from previous album Vampyre Villa and showcasing their unique and unmistakeable deathgaze sound in the process. A pounding bass beat, muscularly distorted and occasionally cacophonous guitar riffs and the contrasting male/female vocal lines dominate another muddily memorable slab of FX-drenched original goth rock. Sensory overload guaranteed. Bandcamp link

18.   Ariel Maniki and The Black Halos – The Pale Horseman

Black Light, the long-waited latest album from Costa Rican act Ariel Maniki and The Black Halos, finally dropped at the end of the month, and with fifteen wonderfully-produced and varied tracks it showcases the breadth of music styles which are covered by the broad term “goth”. From straight guitar-based rock (Strangers, Mirrors) to more intricate synth swathed tracks, the main constants are the strength of the melodies and Maniki’s attention to detail in the production and mastering suites. Straying further from genre tropes on this release, The Pale Horseman fuses diverse elements from dark electro to dark twang to create an original largely instrumental song which showcases Maniki’s skill at manipulating complex chord sequences and combining them with strong melodies to create a unique track which is typical of the variety of sounds one of the most intriguing albums of the year so far.

 

19.   Just Another Monster – Eldritch Succubus

Whilst mall goth figurehead Marilyn Manson remains persona non grata for many on the scene because of allegations made against him, his music continues to inspire and none more so than Just Another Monster, whose new single (which, let's be honest, attracted my attention because of its title) features familiar bone-crushing distorted sleazy riffs, affected vocal over scuzzy bass verse bursting into a high octane singalong chorus and a curiously dated industrial glam-goth metal appeal. Derivatively impressive.

 

20.   Ghost Dance – Falling Down

Anne-Marie Hurst is back with a new iteration of the classic 80’s goth band, with teaser single Falling Down featuring her distinctive strong yet silky vocal prominently. Musically, as expected there’s a typically folky and catchy goth rock chorus to sing along to, but the verse is a little funkier than with previous versions of the band and purists might also point to the lack of a classic one string Gary Marx guitar motif. Nevertheless, a very welcome return.