The best new Goth/Post-Punk releases of October 2021

 And so to your average goth’s favourite month, October. The quiet melancholy of the leaves turning russet before drifting off into oblivion, the wind chill growing colder, the daylight fading and then, at the end of it all, the spookfest of Hallowe’en. For the UK community, it’s synonymous with Whitby, but globally there is always a cemeteryful of new releases to enjoy as projects save their darkest work for the most appropriate time of the year. Selecting just twenty for this month’s review was a difficult task, but a miserably enjoyable one for all that.

1.       Suffering For Kisses – To Kiss The Stars

Given the time of year, it seems only fair to start with the latest releases from the miserygoth sub-genre starting with a new compilation from Tony D’Oporto’s project Suffering For Kisses. Amongst the previously released singles, To Kiss The Stars stands out as a slightly less depressive yet warmly melancholic offering, with a descending bassline dominating the stark early intro which broadens into a more plaintive The-Cure-play-Gimme-Shelter vibe, with a fuller sound than the usual low-fi minimalism. D’Oporto’s lugubrious vocal is perfect for the verse, with the second half enhanced by a female vocal like Ofra Haza’s stylings on the re-recording of Temple of Love. Impressive.

2.       Slow Danse With The Dead – Desolate and Wintery

This month’s new track from Slow Danse With The Dead is equal in quality to this year’s other releases from the Albuquerque-based one-man project. A complex syncopated synth riff over a discofied drum machine beat with the usual depressed vocal make Desolate and Wintery one of the more uplifting tracks from the miserygoth maestro, yet still within the expected ambiance suggested by the song’s title.

3.       Blind Dreams – Dreams of the Dead

There’s a gloomy melancholy one might expect from a Saint Petersburg-based band on a lead track called Dreams of the Dead, and the driving bass, slightly distorted vocal and maudlin synth lines do nothing to lift the depressing feel of a track that is the very epitome of musical misery.

4.       Kaelan Mikla - Svört Augu

Kaelan Mikla have reached the stage of their career where an album of largely bland dark synth pop is probably a wise move, but many post-punk fans will mourn the loss of the unhinged punk poetry of their earliest work. However album opener Svört Augu (“Black Eyes”) creates an eerie atmosphere and retains that feel of impending danger that made their other releases so beguiling, with haunting synth lines over bumbling and distorted sequenced bass showing that they are still capable of making the heart skip the occasional beat.

5.       Scary Black – American Gothic 

A very welcome return for the former Kentucky Vampires vocalist Albie Mason with a topically spooky yet muscular graveyard stomp that combines elements of dark twang, graveyard disco, and miserygoth bleakness on one of the catchiest tracks of the month, which also has a strong lyrical message.

6.       Who Saw Her Die? – Relentless

Yet another act from gothtastic Louisville (Kentucky), Who Saw Her Die? follow up last month’s The Blood EP with a dancefloor friendly 90’s goth style spooky treat with a simple repeated Halloween piano motif nagging away throughout the piece. Another one to watch.

7.       The Scarlet Hour – Blink

The debut EP from English act The Scarlet Hour’s first EP Blink begins with a Bela Lugosi’s Dead bassline and creates a atmospheric miserygoth groove with a semi-spoken Slow Danse With The Dead-style vocal and overall low-fi feel. The new project from Twitter’s “The Blogging Goth” Tim Synystr, The Scarlet Hour assemble some familiar gothic musical tropes into something impressively current and fresh.

8.       The Funeral March – Flood

Moving away from their trad goth/deathrock roots, The Funeral March (of the Marionette)s' new single Flood has a surprisingly French coldwave feel to it, with a heavy reliance on backmasking and more distant guitar, there’s a new-found depth subtlety to their work, which is all the more original as a result.

9.       Chronic Twilight – Paradime

Michael Louis’ third album under the Chronic Twilight banner, Deadlight, introduces new vocalist Kyle Andrew. Paradime is an excellent atmospheric track, with a nightmarish intro presaging an angular bassline and an experimental deathrock feel to guitars and keyboards, with a whispered vocal telling a tale of life “over the wire and under the gun” (Sisters aficionados will recognise these lyrical fragments). Louis’ imaginative chord changes call to mind his Marselle Hodges collaboration on the last Shadow Assembly album, and hints at the genuine potential of Chronic Twilight’s new formation.

10.   Plastique Noir - Asleep In The Night Train

The Brazilian goth/darkwave outfit’s first release for six years rattles along at a fine pace with pulsing bass and reverberated guitar licks, much in the style of The Sisters’ Train. An excellent update on the traditional goth rock sound with a great lyric and a memorable chorus which you’ll find yourself singing for days.

11.   Life Cult – Apparition

The Australian band’s debut EP is crammed with classic 80’s goth rock touches, with lead track Apparition combining a Nephilimistic growly croon with eight-to-the-bar bass and effect- drenched guitars arpeggio in a song that builds superbly to a climax. The combination of subtlety and power on other tracks, with further knowing nods to traditional gothic rock clichés on other tracks, make this debut one of the best trad goth releases of a vintage year for the genre.

12.   Sang Froid – Death Came To Me

After their promisingly varied debut EP at the turn of the year, the Breton band return with a new track of dark melodic brooding goth rock with a strong baritone vocal. Death Came To Me is a well-constructed song builds to fully accomplished atmospheric sound.

13.   Then Comes Silence – Thrill Kill

This month’s Horsemen side project from Then Comes Silence features seventeen superlative cover versions that pay testimony to the artists which have inspired them. It’s hard to select just one track from such a diverse selection of songs, but this cover of a lesser-known millennial song from The Damned has great energy and is perfect for Alex Svenson’s velvety croon whilst featuring typically alchemical guitar playing from Hugo and Mattias, with Jonas battering a solid beat beneath the spooky wah-wah mayhem.

14.   Skeletal Bats - Quiero Ser Santa

Mexican goth act Skeletal Bats take on one of the holy cows of Hispanic post-punk in Paralisis Permanente’s iconic Quiero Ser Santa. An asymmetrical spidery intro plays up the original’s kookiness, and the vocal is a decent approximation of Eduardo’s louche swagger although the chorus lacks the punch and power of the original.

15.   Desenterradas – Un Dia Extrano

Also influenced by Paralisis Permanente, but in their early three-chord punk incarnation are Desenterradas, a shouty female-fronted deathrock act from Majorca. Six years on from their debut cassette, their first LP is finally available, and although not the most original release of the month, it is certainly one of the most powerful.

16.   Vision of the void – Carpe Noctem

From California (where else?!), Vision of the Void are responsible for the best debut deathrock EP of the month. The superbly fuzzy tone of the guitar on the angular deathrock intro to Carpe Noctem is sufficient warning of the quality of the rest of the EP, although the track opens out like a more melodic Skeletal Family style thanks to the strong female vocals. Other tracks stray into related sub-genres and hint at the breadth of the band’s, erm, vision.

17.   The Funeral Warehouse – Can’t See Why 

One of two tracks teased from the French band’s forthcoming debut album Hours and Days, Can’t See Why, a song which has been played live for a decade, blends classic post-punk sounds with touches of dark psych and shoegaze which will appeal to fans of early 90’s bands like The Telescopes. Bandcamp link to the studio version here.

18.   New Today – Let Go

What a wonderful album is Cradle, the latest release from uncompromisingly low-fi garage gothgaze duo New Today. The final teaser track for the album’s release, Let Go is such a laid-back slacker grunge-goth delight that you wonder at times if they will actually make it to the end. These guys plough their own refreshingly original post-punk furrow in a scene where seemingly 90% of songs depressingly start out like No Time To Cry or Headhunter.

19.   The Wake – Emily Closer (Kill Shelter remix)

Smart move by The Wake, doyens of the guitar-based trad goth wing of the current scene, to draft in the leading lights of the (significantly more popular in their native US) synth-based camp of what gets classified as “goth” these days to remix some of the best tracks off their stellar 2020 album. Scot Pete Burns (aka Kill Shelter) is the best remixer in the business, as he proves on this major reworking of one of the standout tracks of The Wake’s 2020 comeback album. Emily Closer, The Wake’s original first comeback single of 2010, has such a fantastic chorus that the song’s essential spirit survives its reworking into a dark dancefloor anthem. Good work all round.

20.   The Ending Nights – Reaching New Ways

If Pete Burns is the best current remixer, Pedro Code (IAMTHESHADOW) must run him pretty close, and his own new side project The Ending Nights combines high tempo beats with descending basslines and atmospheric synth soundscapes topped by a familiar echoing baritone vocal, to bring this month’s round-up to a high-quality close.

Review - Horsemen EP's, Then Comes Silence

 David Bowie’s Pin Ups…Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Through The Looking Glass… Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Kicking Against the Pricks… to these legendary albums of cover versions can now be added Then Comes Silence’s Horsemen project, which cements their position as the pre-eminent twenty-first century goth/post-punk band.

A natural extension of the band’s lockdown covers, which did so much to keep alternative music fans’ spirits high during the pandemic, the Horsemen project is a suite of four EPs containing seventeen tracks in all, appropriately named after the biblical Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse.

The breadth of songs covered – from Gene Vincent’s Be Bop a Lula to She Past Away’s Katarsis via obscure tracks by the likes of The Shamen and Motörhead – hints at the Swedish band’s equally broad potential appeal beyond the narrow confines of the goth/post-punk scene, and also reveals a band well aware of its place in the alternative rock pantheon, paying its respects to those who have gone before and influenced them.

Although Then Comes Silence’s fan base has steadily increased over the course of their five critically-acclaimed albums to date, only the 2020 release, Machine, featured current guitarists Hugo Zombie and Mattias Ruejas Jonson, and the Horsemen project gave the band the opportunity to gel further as a project before undertaking their next LP.

Recorded in their own studio, the four EPs of the Horsemen side project are available in digital-only format, each featuring its own distinctive artwork and theme.

Pestilence

The first EP, Pestilence, opens with what band leader Alex Svenson has admitted was the most difficult to perfect of all the arrangements in the project, Echo and the Bunnymen’s The Killing Moon. The singer and bassist need not have worried, however, as Then Comes Silence’s version is more muscular, powerful and dramatic than the original, the combination of Svenson’s smooth, suave and sophisticated vocal and the Bunnymen’s epic chorus lending the track a James Bond-theme intensity. But this project is not just an A-Z of 1980’s post-punk royalty, as the next track amply demonstrates. It may have been written within the last five years, but Buzz Kull’s We Were Lovers has an earworm quality that effortlessly bridges four decades, particularly in Then Comes Silence’s capable hands. Hugo Zombie’s inventive reworking of John McGeoch’s genial playing on Siouxsie and the Banshees schizophrenic tale Christine will already be familiar to fans as the song was one of the band’s original lockdown covers, but the new version on Pestilence is both sharper and more focused. The final track on the first Horsemen EP, the Kinks’ Rainy Day In June, has been described by Svenson as summing up the whole project, the lyric an excellent metaphor for the lengthy global lockdown, and Then Comes Silence subtly update Ray Davies’ original without losing its wistfully melancholic vibe.

War

Of the four EP’s released under the Horsemen moniker, War is probably the least immediate, despite the presence of a very polished cover of Dance With Me, originally a minor hit in 1983 for goth supergroup The Lords of the New Church, a band which had an influence both musically and visually on Then Comes Silence. The band also takes on another of the genre’s sacred cows, The Sisters of Mercy’s Body Electric, drawing parallels in the introduction with the Swedes’ own biggest hit to date, Strangers, with Jonas Fransson’s crisp drumming a reminder of how TSOM might have sounded if Andrew Eldritch hadn’t hung up his sticks and invested in a drum machine. The other two tracks on War have the distinctively funky, offbeat angular vibe of early 1980’s new wave, with Fear of Glass (originally by fellow Swedes Cortex) and Grace Jones’ breathless Living My Life both maintaining the high tempo angst of this particular EP, bringing to mind the claustrophobic genius of vintage Talking Heads.

Famine

The third EP, Famine, is arguably the best of the four, not only because of the presence of an extra track but because on all five songs, the band manages to improve on the original, which Svenson acknowledges is the primary aim of any cover version. The minor key modulations in the chorus of Depeche Mode’s miserabilist anthem Shake The Disease have always been ripe for a gothic rock cover version, and TCS deliver the definitive account, replacing the original’s limp synths with light yet powerful layers of guitar. Dead Kennedy’s Moon Over Marin has a much simpler song structure, but Hugo’s skilful arrangement means that it doesn’t seem out of place, whilst retaining its message and momentum. The stunning cover of Be Bop A Lula is up next, distorted and reimagined in finest Cramps style, with Alex Svenson channelling his finest “goth Elvis” (to quote one YouTuber) for the unhinged vocal. From the ridiculous to the sublime for the final two tracks on Famine, superlative versions of two lesser known songs beloved of fans of the darkside, The Damned’s wah-wahed up goth’n’roll masterpiece Thrill Kill (from 2001’s Grave Disorder) and Where Do You Go?, a criminally ignored dark psych pop wonder from The Shamen’s Drop album (before they discovered techno). Svenson’s velvety baritone vocal is perfect for what is arguably the straightest and most reverential reworking of all the songs on the Horsemen project, and a track which (like Hallelujah and Perfect Day) deserves to finally reach a wider public thanks to a cover version.

Death

Like Famine, the final EP, Death, also starts with a guitar band reworking of a synth based classic, Belgian EBM legends Front 242’s Don’t Crash. The Horsemen version removes the jarring jerkiness of original, with the middle section sung by Aux Animaux’ Gözde Duzer. With the original lyric written by a woman (Valerie Steele), Svenson felt that it was only appropriate that a female vocal should feature on the new version. Current scene darlings She Past Away were originally well-known for only singing only in their native Turkish, but the Horsemen reworking of one of their best-known songs Katarsis features a stark vocal in English from Svenson, who worked on the new translation with Duzer (which was approved of by the original authors), and the new version again demonstrates the sheer quality of the music in the current scene, which may yet eclipse that of the original wave. Again. like Famine, Death ends with two sensational reworkings, beginning with Jimi Hendrix’s I Don’t Live Today (which is sadly unavailable in the US for copyright reasons). The stunning arrangement shows the wonderful synergy of the TCS twin guitarists to full effect, with the dark lyric highlighted by Svenson’s own stellar performance. Saving the best until last, Motörhead’s spine-chillingly experimental Nightmare/The Dreamtime (from the Battle Of The Somme-inspired album 1916) brings this extensive study in the art of the cover to an exquisitely epic and unexpected close, the slow power of the original harnessed to maximal effect in another sumptuous arrangement which enables modern studio technology to reveal additional layers of depth to one of Lemmy’s finest (if least well-known) songs.

In the art world, the Old Masters would refine their craft by experimenting with textures and techniques in reconstructing some of the greatest paintings by their predecessors. With the Horsemen project, Then Comes Silence have not only taken their own sound to another level by honing their craft in this way, they have redefined the future vision of the whole goth/post-punk genre, bringing together strands of the past and the present of the alternative musical genre from the rock’n’roll rebels of the 1950’s to the leading lights of today’s scene in a wholly successful project.

The Horsemen EP’s are digitally available via Metropolis Records (USA) and HaHa Fonogram (rest of the world). They can be found on all the usual digital platforms (Spotify etc) and streamed on the customary "try before you buy" basis on Bandcamp. 

Album Review - Demigods by Guillotine Dream

Guillotine Dream – Demigods

UK occult goth rock act Guillotine Dream return this week - appropriately just in time for Hallowe'en -  with their latest album, Demigods, which further explores the vast oceans of the complex dark gothic rock sound first colonized by Fields of the Nephilim and subsequently developed by the likes of Moonspell, Sweet Ermengarde and, more recently, the late lamented Sometime the Wolf.

After a debut set Lemuria on Oskar Terramortis’ seminal Gothic Rock imprint and a follow-up EP, Guillotine Dream went for a darker, rawer sound on Damaged and Damned, which had a live-in-the-studio feel and positioned the band as serious contenders after the more light-hearted tone of their earlier videos. On new album Demigods the trio of vastly experienced musicians deliver a more homogenous and polished sound without losing the energy and dark vibe which made the brooding melancholy of their guitar-based goth rock sound so effective in the first place.

After an instrumental overture (as is common in this sub-genre), Disengage, which encourages the listener’s brain to do just that, departing the ‘real world’ for a journey into the darker recesses of the soul, opening track In Her Hands begins with the distinctive Guillotine Dream reverberating fog of a crunching guitar sequence, with Ark’s opening vocal line revealing the progress he has made as a singer in this genre with his line higher in the mix than previously. The song’s complex structure includes more angular, alienating deathrock guitar riffs and a faster chorus section with Mapk’s powerful drumming to the fore. Wild Winds Call continues the other-worldly ambiance, a vaguely lilting riff somewhat reminiscent of mid-tempo Sonsombre underpinning a tale of “ghosts of yesterday” as the album really gets into its stride.

A wonderfully echoing bass note opens another slow-burner of a track, God’s Waiting, with more Banshees-esque chord changes accompanying Ark’s artfully whispered growl, begging “heavenly father, give us a sign” to help overcome “isolation, pain, regret”. Again, the sound is more subtle and has a lighter touch than on previous GD albums, but the overall effect is all the more powerful as a result.

The pace of the album changes with the faster-paced Three Score and Ten, with Ark again sounding like (dreadful pun, ahoy!) the real McCoy as he bellows over a circular guitar motif which repeats throughout the song, before lead single Another takes us back into traditional mid-paced goth rock territory, a great introduction to the band’s unique sound for more casual listeners. Come Away continues the less bleak tone, with a chiming guitar riff and more positive vibe whilst remaining firmly within the dark gothic spell the album has cast, a tone which continues on They Never Knew, despite a more spartan arrangement which focuses more attention on the string-bending guitar riff and vocal.

The more deathrock vibe returns on the spidery opening to band’s new signature tune, Blades Fall (Smells Like Guillotine Spirit) which harks back to the group’s earlier releases with a galloping rhythm section (like on FOTN’s Phobia) and a denser, wilfully muddier sound. Final track Waiting For God starts with a bright darkwave/post-punk riff and cleaner vocal, an anthemic chorus about “the chosen ones” showing the broader potential appeal of the band’s sound to the broader contemporary goth audience once the favoured guitar FX pedals are disengaged. Essentially, Guillotine Dream retain the ability to do pomp without the pomposity, as the tongue-in-cheek strapline on their FB page "Music For Morbid Minds. Others Might Like It Too" will testify.

Demigods is Guillotine Dream’s most complete and polished album to date, further refining the band’s strong yet subtle sound and making a clearer statement of intent. Released on CD and digitally on 15^th October, it can be ordered from the band’s Bandcamp page – pre-orders are already being dispatched!

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.

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.