The best September Goth/Post-Punk releases

 

And so to what Keats described as the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, as the cold nights drawn in across the northern hemisphere and goths enjoy the respite from the harsh summer sun, with the welcoming darkness of Hallowe’en just around the corner. This month’s contemporary darkwave harvest is suitably bountiful, with everything from experimental psychobilly through miserygoth misanthropy to a bumper crop of full-on occult gothic rock as the current scene continues to expand across the sub-genres.

         1.       Ashes Fallen – We Belong Nowhere

Ashes Fallen’s breakthrough album A Fleeting Melody Out of a Fading Dream has rightly drawn plaudits over the summer, and the new video for latest featured track We Belong Nowhere shows exactly why they deserve their place at the top table. Adding a NMA-style political conscience and menacing intro to their more traditional goth rock sound, James Perry’s soaring vocal on the anthemic Manic Street Preachers-esque chorus is perfect for a lyric which is very much in tune with the inclusive supportive vibe of the current online goth community, and the well-made video only adds to its considerable impact.

         2.       Ist Ist - It Stops Where It Starts

The latest much-hyped band from Manchester UK, Ist Ist, released a new single this month which should help to raise their profile. With the dark intensity of post-punk icons Editors, It Stops Where It Starts has a bit of an 80’s B Movie vibe on the verse, with singer Adam Houghton channeling his best back-of-the-throat Dave Vanian vocal for the occasion.

         3.       Sounds Like Winter – The Wedding Feast

Also channeling the dark intensity of 00’s bands like Interpol and Editors but with a more dramatic deathrock vocal, Australian band Sounds Like Winter’s latest album Fight The Stairs has also caused a stir, with latest video single The Wedding Feast showcasing their sound to excellent effect.

        4.       Light of the Morning Star – There Are Many Shadows

London blackgaze band Light of the Morning Star return with crunchingly abyssal metal riffs and dense hanging gothic shrouds of broken chords across the refreshingly bleak new album Charnel Noir. There are shades of Tiamat in the relentlessly pummelling depths of sound on an album which takes unremitting darkness to a new level.

         5.       Ecstatic Spells - Stella

Fifteen months after their much-heralded Great Loser single, Krasnodar goth/darkwave band Ecstatic Spells are back with new single Stella. A lush yet spartan dark pop song with a haunting reverb guitar riff, electronic drums and sequenced fills contribute to an uplifting yet melancholic feel on a very well-crafted and arranged song.

         6.       Null – Reflected  

This impressive new EP has the same 90’s gazey post-rock vibe as the late lamented God Machine, with a combination of Pumpkins dark fuzz and bleak Catherine Wheel metallic energy.     Link to Bandcamp

     7.       Vlimmer – I.P.A.

After years of regularly releasing EP after EP of new sounds, German multi-instrumentalist Alexander Leonard Donat’s Vlimmer project final release an album (Nebenkörper) which has a distinctive sonic theme running through it. Old school, haunting synth lines, busy drum machine fills and lively bass riffs combine with more discordant elements to create intense claustrophobic soundscapes like I.P.A. which retain the unpredictable atmospheric experimental and industrial twists and turns which always make new Vlimmer releases such a thrilling listening experience, the whole thing superbly mastered by Kill Shelter’s Pete Burns. If Igor Stravinsky and The Young Gods collaborated to write a new song cycle to be performed by Trent Reznor on 70’s Moogs, it would sound something like this.

         8.       H Zombie - Zombies Don’t Run

With Then Comes Silence side project Horsemen due to drop a staggering quartet of EPs of covers next month, guitarist Hugo Zombie has released his first solo EP in eight years, paying tribute to psychobilly zombie rockers like The Cramps and The Meteors. The former Los Carniceros del Norte axemen channels his inner P Paul Fenech with the help of guest vocalists, such as TCS mainman Alex Svenson on the tongue-in-cheek Zombies Don’t Run.

         9.       Gloom Wizard - Firelight

Mexican band Gloom Wizard’s new album Madrugada showcases their low-fi goth rock charm to great effect. With a love of quavering vocals, a raw goth’n’roll backing and powerful bass riffs, the band continue the scuzzy tradition of 80’s bands like The Hunters Club on their more upbeat tracks, whilst slower burners like Firelight create a spookier vibe.

         10.   Byronic Sex & Exile – Deicide Is Painless

BS&E’s excellent new album Unrepentant Thunder came out earlier this month and earned a full review on this blog, with Joel Heyes on top songwriting and performing form on a strong long player based on Lord Byron’s time in Greece. Deicide Is Painless is one of the more intense tracks on the album, constructed around a simple piano motif before building to a dramatically bombastic finale and is an excellent representation of the project’s overall appeal.

         11.   Cross Chapel – This Love Cannot Be Recognised

Interesting goth disco from the Tacoma-based project, this raw debut demo EP hints at a promising future, with the miserygoth vocal on the low-fi This Love Cannot Be Recognised the highlight of the tracks on offer.

             12.   Slow Danse With The Dead – Cold Caress

Fans of the prolific Alberquerque one-man band will be delighted to learn that The Babble of Despair EP has been reconfigured and extended and is now being afforded both a release on limited edition cassette and an equally limited CD which are sure to sell out. Cold Caress shuffles along in a mildly unsettling manner over a simple electro beat, with the usual deadpan vocal adding to the customary quality miserygoth vibe. Bandcamp link

         13.   Into Grey – Low

A very welcome return to form for Jermaine Artis’ one-man project, with another dark journey into the soul. Fans of Joy Division will enjoy the winning juxtaposition of upbeat guitar lines with a complex and slightly claustrophobic yet spartan arrangement on Low, with a bleak vocal about “waiting for the end” adding to the overall vibe

         14.   All My Thorns – Enlighten Me

One of the most anticipated new UK projects of the year, All My Thorns is the new band from Sometime The Wolf vocalist Drew Freeman. His distinctive soaring reverberating Carl McCoy growl is still the main focal point of the sound, which was debuted at three live shows this month, although no studio tracks have yet been released. As much Nefilim as Nephilim influenced, on this early evidence All My Thorns will surely be at the forefront of the live UK goth scene over the coming years.

         15.   Guillotine Dream – They Never Knew

They Never Knew is one of three teaser tracks from forthcoming album Demigods, and features the  ringing guitar Nephilimisitic sound long term fans will recall from the Something Shining Something Bright EP with extra string-bending and harmonics, with a cleaner arrangement than the muddier mix on the last album Damaged and Damned. Demigods will be released in a fortnight and reviewed here next week! Bandcamp link

       16.   A Pale Horse Named Death – Slave To The Master

APHND’s new album is another impressive addition to an excellent canon of work which in both gravitas and quality is approaching that of Sal Abruscato’s own former band Type O Negative. Slave To The Master is a sumptuously doomy gothic ballad saved from Nickelback blandness by subtle psychedelic arpeggiated guitar tinges in the style of Black Hole Sun or Dear Prudence. Despite dark lyrical themes and minor key melodies, APHND’s music is always strangely liberating and spiritually uplifting for those with heightened gothic sensibilities.

         17.   October Noir – Serendipity

Ironically released on the same day as A Pale Horse Named Death’s latest opus, October Noir’s third album Fate, Wine and Wisteria (!) sees the Type O Negative obsessives use the Drab Four’s psychedelic doom goth metal template to create some thrillingly original songs to keep the ToN spirit well and truly alive, as The Merry Thoughts did for The Sisters of Mercy in the 1990's.  Not only do the song structures, sludgy guitar tones and effects and overall production values mirror Brooklyn’s finest, but the Florida based band’s singer Tom Noir employs a very similar vocal style, which is particularly effective on the wonderfully gloomy basso profundo sections of songs like Serendipity (1:20 in).

         18.   Chronic Twilight – Endless Garden 

Michael Louis’ former solo project now boasts a new vocalist (Kyle Andrew) and Endless Garden, one of two tracks available to pre-stream from the new album, features intriguing TSOM lyrical references. As usual Louis crafts a superb old school gothic rock soundscape, with pounding basslines and shimmering guitars, with the androgynous vocal adding new layers to the Chronic Twilight sound.

         19.   Ritual Blood – Zombie Dust

This is a fantastic two-track blackgaze EP from the Alabama act, with perhaps the heaviest bass intro sound since Craig Adams discovered the fuzzbox and bashed out the riff to Floorshow. With a nightmarish lyric intoned with miserygoth nonchalance, this low-fi gothic metal treat meanders somewhat aimlessly during the middle section before the doomy opening riff returns.

         20. Years of Denial – Poison Door

The Unknown Pleasures Records tribute album to The Sisters of Mercy was finally released this month, and amongst the many impressive cover versions was this excellent re-working by Years of Denial of TSOM b-side Poison Door as a dark electro dancefloor banger, the sub-Marc Almond vocal oozing the louche ambiance of a Berlin basement club.