Posts Tagged ‘dark’

we be echo – Do Not Switch On

Posted: 18 November 2023 in Albums
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23rd November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Dark post punk and music of a gothy persuasion appears to be enjoying – if enjoyment is an accurate description – of late. Dark times call for dark music, and the echoes of the 80s which resonate in the presents are deep. As financial turmoil continues to bite hard – and hardest on those who struggle the most – and war rages around the world, the new state of cold war which hovers has been relegated to a mere shadow in the background, bur remains very real. Add climate change and constant surveillance, massive inflation, and a global political shift to the right to the mix, and we have the perfect cocktail for an explosion of music which channels dissent and frustration.

But what goes around comes around, and it’s a truism that if you stick with what you’re doing long enough, it will inevitably come back into fashion at some point. And so here we are presented with Do Not Switch On, the latest offering from we be echo.

Canadian Kevin Thorne has been doing what he does for a long time. As he set out in his bio, ‘I formed Third Door From The Left with Raye Coluori in 1979. I left to form we be echo in 1981, and released Ceza Evi on cassette and contributed to several compilations. I’m still recording now, some 40 plus years later. And what do you know? The world has come back around and caught up with his mode of musical output once more.

Do Not Switch On is straight in with bass that snakes and crunches: ‘Cold Rain Gun’ is dark, dank, weighty and throbs away as Thorne paints a word-portrait of a bleak and dangerous world. Depressingly, any depiction of near-future dystopias are more or less the reality in which we find ourselves.

Instrumentally, ‘At You, Because’ sounds like a cut from The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Honey’s Dead, with a driving bass and shuffling beats locking down a solid groove. The same is largely rue of the pulsating psychedelic throb of ‘Sometimes’, which calls to mind the cyclical stylings of Pink Turns Blue, only with more bass – much more bass – and more noise – much more noise.

‘Grey, Grey’ is a blistering riff-driven tune, and it’s swampy, dark, dense, with a tinge of not only psychedelia but of swampy surf. For all that, The Black Angels stand as the closest comparisons, at least on this absolute stomper, and hot on its heels, ‘Die For You’ follows the same hypnotic template, a motoric beat thudding away through various explosions of sound while Thorne croaks and croons a monotone amidst the swirling tension, and ‘Sepia’ locks into a groove that feels longer than it is, in a good way. If ‘Shallow Hallow’ leans rather heavily on Bauhaus and ‘R.U.N.’ takes a bit much from both The Black Angels and the Sisters of Mercy simultaneously, it works.

Do Not Switch On is a solid album, and that’s a fact. Most of the tracks run past the five-minute mark and drive away at a single repetitive riff for the duration. But within what may appear to be limited confines, Thorne really wrings a lot out of what is, in real terms, a minimal setup.

This stuff never ceases to excite, either live or recorded. Do Not Switch On is solid, and nags and gnaws unexpectedly.

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Neon Funeral – Banned From The Goth Club

Posted: 9 November 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Cleopatra Records – 8th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The goth crowd are an odd bunch. Like many subcultures, there’s a strong tribalism ingrained among them, and not even simply the older adherents or trad goths. There’s a perplexing contradiction here, in that a subculture born out of a broad church of outsiders should be so defensive and exclusive, even antagonistic towards those outside their club, while at the same time many are the most broad-minded and accommodating people you could encounter. I suspect the less accommodating are keen to protect their thing from people who aren’t really into it. Casuals, weekend goths, emos and metallers who misrepresent what it is to be goth… yeah, there’s a logic to not want to be tarred with the same mascara brush as some.

In my experience, some goth gigs – and I have been to many, although can’t claim to have been ‘there’ in the early 80s when it was all starting out because I simply wasn’t of an age – do seem to attract more than their share of ‘gother than thou’ posers, and while my collection is very heavy on vintage goth records (and CDs) and my wardrobe is 90% black (as Andrew Eldritch once quipped, and I paraphrase, it saves on laundry), I’ve always felt that I’m not goth enough for the weekend tribal gatherings in Whitby.

This is all to say that I get where Neon Funeral are coming from with this release. The New Jersey-based darkwave/post-punk band, are on Cleopatra Records, which has some pretty strong goth credentials. But then no doubt there will be British goths who will say that it’s an American label and the Americans don’t really ‘get’ goth and created their own strain and yadda yadda yadda.

As the blurbage explains, ‘The EP’s theme is based upon the band feeling alienated from the goth scene. The name of the EP, Banned From The Goth Club was given because of the band’s challenge in finding their audience given their contradictory sound.

The band states, “The goth audience can’t exactly get fully immersed into the music because of the aggression and intensity of the vocals and the hardcore scene can’t exactly understand the softer and dance-driven instrumentals for moshing. We once performed at a goth venue and seemed out of place and out of touch with the audience. We then coined the phrase ‘Banned From The Goth Club’ to welcome the eclectic sound and introduce it playfully.” As is to accentuate this point, the last track on the EP is a cover of Eddie Murphy’s 80s foray into music-making, ‘Party All The Time’.

‘A Void’ is probably too synthy for the traditionalists who like their guitars, trebly and drenched in chorus – but then the switch to gritty, snarling vocals are too metal for the darkwave fans. Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time, but what do you do when the people are ultra-picky and pedantic? In the words of Valor Kand – fuck ‘em! It’s a cracking tune, dreamy on the surface but with a heavy dash of nightmare in there. On ‘Avolition’, the heavy synths and hyperactive programmed drumming, melded to solid bass and overlaid with theatrical vocals bring all the ingredients of 90s goth as represented by the likes of Suspiria and the Nightbreed Roster (although thankfully not Every New Dead Ghost). ‘High Tech Low Life’ is short – a mere two minutes and fifty seconds – and gloomy, a droning, drifting synth that lands between Faith era Cure and New Order circa Movement, but with some roaring metal vocals, before it skips into something that’s more like The Mission on crack and fronted by Carl McCoy. All to often, hearing the popular elements of goth being jigsawed together is a bit of a yawn, but it would be way off to describe this as derivative. With its harder edge, Banned From The Goth Club isn’t going to appeal to a large portion of the crowd, particularly the trads and the purists, and it’s not one for the dreamwave, darkwave, or cybergoths either. But for anyone who isn’t set on genre limitations, and with ears, and who likes it dark and a shade gnarly, this is a winner.

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Watch: ‘Going Numb’ by Mekong

Posted: 8 November 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Polish post-punk/darkwave band, Mekong has just unveiled the first single from their upcoming album, Danse Danse.

In ‘Going Numb’, the hypnotic fusion of post-punk and dark-wave weaves a haunting tale of a girl’s last night out. The dance floor becomes her sanctuary one final time. Amidst the pulsating beats and disco-inspired rhythm, she embraces the numbness, surrendering to the melancholic melodies that guide her through a poignant journey.

The song encapsulates her bittersweet dance, capturing the raw emotions of her final moments before the inevitable darkness descends.

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Watch: ‘Werewolves’ by Sky Lions

Posted: 26 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Portland post-punk alt-rockers SKY LIONS presents ‘Werewolves’, a wild offering from their debut album Inside The Circle. The duo is made up of Radio Sloan and Outer Stace, who over the years have performed with or as a part of Courtney Love’s band, Peaches’ band, Le Tigre, The Need, Time Bitch and Photona.

Sky Lions’ musical collaboration began in childhood, before they were aware of any rules. Outer Stace says, “’Werewolves’, in part, is about the idea of shifting from our outer selves to our inner selves, the fleeting peace that can bring; transformation and adaptation… So, the art direction possibilities were pretty endless. It was a lot of fun to create the different versions of ourselves that we could be.”

Watch the video here:

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“It’s like a metamorphic reality of death and the future. It feels like things we’ve seen,” says Radio Sloan. “Our sound is that of accepting existence for all its flaws. Sky Lions has a darkness that isn’t entirely heavy metal, post-punk or darkwave. Rather, it’s a culmination of who we have been, who we currently are, and how we interpret the world around us. Moving within that world is the core of our musical expression.”

From early days experimenting with instruments to their evolution into Sky Lions, they’ve carved a niche where innovation, music, feminism, Trans/queer identity and horror come together. Sky Lions weaves together the threads of life’s absurdity, unquestionable magic and tragedy. Their trans / queer / feminist lens adds a relatability of lives lived and times to come, creating an immersive sonic journey that challenges the mind and ears. Through genre-blurring compositions and evocative lyrics, they hope to channel their ethos into a call for transformation! They hope that their songs challenge stereotypes, and ignite conversation.

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Watch: ‘Dream One’ by Cold in Berlin

Posted: 21 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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New Heavy Sounds is stoked to announce a new multi-record project by Cold in Berlin The Wounds.

Consisting of an EP, The Body is the Wound, and an album, due in 2024, The Wounds is a musical vade mecum of what is to come in a fresh era for the band.

Vocalist Maya explains: “The Wounds started as an idea about bringing together stories of loss and the idea that wounds can be growth, healing and that slow burn you use to fuel other fires.”

The Body is the Wound EP launches the next chapter in CIB’s journey.

Released on 19th January (New Heavy Sounds), the four tracks cover diverse musical ground, drawing ideas from krautrock, post-punk and doom, but always with the requisite  amount of weight. 

Watch the video for new single ‘Dream One’ here:

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Watch: ‘A Hand to Hold the Gun’ by Hanging Freud

Posted: 16 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Glasgow-based duo HANGING FREUD join hands with the Belgian label Spleen+ (division of Alfa Matrix) for the release of Worship, their most personal and emotive full length ever.

On this 7th studio album, Paula Borges and Jonathan Skinner continue refining their unique sound identity that nobody managed so far to narrow down to one specific music style, often evoking influences and elements of post punk, ethereal, synthgaze, cold wave, ambient pop or yet experimental electronica.

With the heartbeat of a drum machine as metronome, Paula’s vocals are dark, haunting, almost glacial, her enunciation is both plaintive and full of echoing fragile grace. While the cinematic music warps them all in a melancholic ethereal cocoon made of mechanical funeral melodies, icy minimal sequences and suffocating synth atmospheres. The overall ambience is dense, lingering, almost claustrophobic, but so poignant and uplifting that it takes you by the throat and touches you at the deepest end of your soul.

The 10 songs featured on this album literally come from a place of contradiction hanging somewhere between courageous vulnerability and fearful resilience, and deal with themes such as collective distress and loss, finding beauty in tragedy or yet questioning about what makes us human in the symbolic contrasts of life and death.
It’s no surprise to hear that this “less is more” introspective ode to melancholia was written in particular claustrophobic circumstances during the pandemic lockdown. “Because of what was going on, we were essentially stuck in temporary accommodation in Scotland, away from our studio and forced into a period unexperienced before. The songs that came out therefore come from a different place. Everything was done within a laptop and is proudly 100% digital. It was recorded and mixed while literally sitting on the side of a bed in a mouse infested apartment…” explains Paula Borges.

Strong from their somewhat nomadic past with multicultural backgrounds of coming from Sao Paulo (Brazil) and London (UK), HANGING FREUD sign here a timeless chef d’oeuvre full of beautifully dark simplicity, an emotional body of work that is uncompromising and genre defying at the same time. If you missed HANGING FREUD so far, the moment has come to fall under their freezing spell and addictively hit the play-button again and again.

As a taster of the album, out in December, they’ve unveiled a video for ‘A Hand to Hold the Gun’, which you can see here:

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Listen: ‘The Primitive Covenant’ by Cirkeln

Posted: 14 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Cirkeln, the black-metal project of the Stockholm-based underground musician known as Våndarr recently unveiled another from track his third album The Primitive Covenant, which is set to be released on November 3rd via True Cult Records.

“Writing this song was probably the most fun I’ve ever had writing for Cirkeln”, says Våndarr. “Usually, the process is quite laborious and takes a long time. There´s rarely a spark of inspiration that then flow naturally into the recording process. But, with the Witch Bell I knew I wanted to take a rawer approach to writing and recording. At that point I knew the mission of the record was to strip away and get down to the basics. I set up the recording as close to a live scenario as I possibly could in my living room-based studio. This meant that the drums were laid down first and then I tracked all the guitars and all the bass in one take for each instrument. There was no editing or refining of the recordings after the fact. There were rarely even second takes. I think this gives the song a sense of unapologetic ugliness and momentum. There was no click track, so the pace of the instruments is entirely dictated by listening to the drums. It’s not the tightest Cirkeln track – but to me it’s the one that sounds the most alive. I also wanted to experiment with incorporating a different vocal technique and style on this album – and the Witch Bell is one of the best examples of this. To me, this is the point where Cirkeln doesn´t allow itself to be confined by one idea of what Black Metal is. There’s more than one shade to darkness.”

On the follow-up to his critically second album A Song To Sorrow, Våndarr is once paying homage to the forefathers of black-metal, yet this time The Primitive Covenant sees the Swedish musician incorporating more elements of old-school thrash-metal, primeval death-metal and even punk.

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Watch: ‘Ochre’ (feat. HEALTH) by Venera

Posted: 12 October 2023 in Reviews
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As a final preview from Venera’s self-titled debut album, the duo have shared the track and video ‘Ochre’ (featuring HEALTH). The darkly surreal Venera is out tomorrow via Ipecac Recordings.

About the track; “’Ochre came early on in the recording process of the album. For me, it recalls a beast stealthily moving through a dark space, or a strange ritual unfolding in moonlight.” – Chris Hunt

Jake Duzsik from HEALTH adds, "It was refreshing to contribute to a track that is focused on creating atmosphere and feeling rather than simply capitulating to the endless regurgitation of standard verse/chorus structure.  It is grounding to reconnect to the building blocks of music making that are elemental and emotional, and I wish I got to do it more often.”

Watch the video here:

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Photo credit: Rizz

Euchridian – Philia

Posted: 9 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
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1st September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Details around Scottish black metal act Euchridian and sketchy. They’re a trio, and the drums were recorded at a different studio from the rest of the instruments. And this is to the good. I don’t need to know, and ultimately, probably don’t want to know. What does it matter when they formed, where they live, what gigs they’ve done? The lack of social media presence is admirable: in the absence of corny posed photos and candid snaps and videos of them gurning away at their instruments, I have nothing to judge them on but the music and the enigmatic cover art. And a little enigma goes a long way.

The advent of social media has not been a great thing for many artists. Before social media, it was possible for the music and the record sleeves to represent, and promotion didn’t have to involve endless posts about pointless shit like pictures of the band’s takeaway delivery before a rehearsal. Social media says that bands now need to build a rapport with their fans, to interact, to engage, and frequently to keep them engaged. But acts like Sunn O))) and Khanate prove it’s possible to not do that and build an immense fanbase. Likewise, you won’t see JK Broadrick doing rounds of inane interviews, spouting pointless opinions on pointless subjects to flog a few more Godflesh albums, or GYBE raffling off drum skins and offering personalised hand-written lyric sheets for £75 or whatever.

Musicians by nature tend not to be as extrovert as the act of making and performing music may suggest – and there’s a world of difference from being a pop act with aspirations to performing arenas, to murky metal which channels all the pain and anguish of existence and is much less about reaching an audience than it is about having an outlet for all that shit.

Philia is, according to my light research, one of the four ancient Greek words for love, and compared to agape and eros, it’s perhaps the most obscure. This may in part be a reason for the choice for the EP’s title, but philia is usually translated as ‘friendship’ or affection, and this is what carries into the first track, the nine-and-a-half minute ‘Sweetness’.

Sweetness and black metal may seem unusual pairings, and sure enough, this absolute monster of a track. The guitar sound is quite bright, and it’s a solo riff that opens what starts a crunching slow-burner. The drums crash in slowly next, before Matt Davies’ manic mangled rasp of a strangled snake spitting venom enters the fray. There is a sense of pomp, a sense of ceremony, but above all, this feels maniacal, murderous, deranged and fucked up. The temp shifts here and there, and there’s the obligatory monster guitar solo, but it’s the driving riff that blossoms into something truly epic.

And on the subject of the truly epic, the second track, ‘The Rule Of Three’ is an absolute monster, clocking in at over thirteen-and-a-half minutes and built around a slow, trudging riff. The guitar may be bright, but it’s mangled as fuck and squirms in an agonised tandem with the raw, ruined vocals. Around the mid-point, it switches focus and embarks on a break that s beyond epic – but it’s not corny, either. It is, however, one of those chord sequences played in a way that makes you feel. And the it goes really dark.

Overall, Philia is properly nasty: this is the sound of a band fully committed to plunging the deepest depths of darkness, and ‘Philia’ doesn’t punch you in the guts, but pulls your guts out and squeezes them. Philia is full-on intensity, and hits where it hurts.

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Listen: ‘Panic’ by The Neuro Farm

Posted: 9 October 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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‘Panic’ is the new single from DC goth rockers The Neuro Farm. The song is inspired by a childhood episode of fevered delirium, and it will be featured on their next album planned for 2024.

The Neuro Farm is a darkwave gothic rock band based in Washington DC. Combining vocal harmony with soaring violin melodies, driving rhythm guitar, and ethereal sonic textures, their music has been described as hauntingly beautiful. The Neuro Farm draws on influences such as Joy Division, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sigur Ros, Chelsea Wolfe, Portishead, and Rammstein.

Listen here:

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