Posts Tagged ‘goth’

Polevaulter – Hang Wave

Posted: 24 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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26th January 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Polevaulter haven’t come from nowhere but have, it seems, evolved – or devolved – from a regular band with guitars and a regular drummer, to a brutal drum-machine driven duo, a model which has landed them some high-profile support slots and attention in their own right. Debuting – at least in this incarnation – with ‘HILTSCTW’ (That’s ‘How I Learnt To Stop Chewing The Wasp And Face The Bulldog’) in February 2020, they’ve put out a couple of EPs on tape and CD, both of which have sold out, as well as a couple of digital singles, ahead of this, their debut album, which they performed live for eight hours straight and streamed it on YouTube as a fundraiser for Palestine the other week. It might not have had the intensity of one of their half-hour support sets, but it set out their position politically and as people, suggesting that as much as they’re about impact, they’re also about endurance.

With the exception of the last couple of singles, none of the songs on Hang Wave have been previously released. Hang Wave, then, is no sweeping up of their catalogue to date, but an album proper, and a work which is focused on where they’re at now, not where they were.

It’s a thudding pulsing bass drum bear that drives ‘Mia Goth Made Me Do It’, the first of the album’s ten tracks. It’s tense, and it’s dark: the bass is low-slung and bulbous, but the vocals are subject to really high-treble EQ and some crisp, dry reverb which gives them a harsh edge. This is no gentle introduction: they’re straight in and at the jugular. A mangled, confrontational industrial / goth assault, it makes for a challenging, confrontational opening to an album that’s stark and uncompromising.

Single ‘Trend’ packs snappy (and in places somewhat bizarre) lyrics, with lines like ‘Don’t tell me to put my vase away’ and ‘I do a line off a horses dick’, and stuttering beats, a monstrous bastard of a bass noise and some woozy discordant notes that bend and melt in the incendiary heat of the fire of the vocal ferocity. ‘Pissed in the Baths’, just unveiled as a final taster of the album is another murky morass of dingy post-punk, and as likely to deter more prospective listeners than it will attract. You get the impression that Polevaulter couldn’t care less, and that they’re not doing this to garner popularity, to get played on the radio, for accolades or to get rich or famous – which is a good job: in articulating alienation and also simply venturing, without restraint, down the deepest, darkest, and most obscure tunnels against a backdrop of the most unrefined, angular noise, Polevaulter have pretty much guaranteed they will achieve none of these things. Of course, in repelling the majority, they’re appealing to an extremely devoted minority of people who actively enjoy music that hurts, physically and mentally.

It’s hard to make out what the fuck they’re ranting and raving about most of the time, but the delivery – half spoken word, half hollering – is strong and is a message in itself. Because anger is an energy, and shouting into the abyss is the most exultant catharsis. Polevaulter deliver that catharsis in the bluntest, starkest of manners, and the production accentuates it all.

‘Industry Plant Based’ seems to be a swipe at more than one contemporary issue, and it’s fair to say it’s hard to imagine an act further from The Last Dinner Party.

There are no tunes to speak of on Hang Wave, and choruses are in short supply, too. Perhaps the most obvious and valid points of comparison are Benefits and Sleaford Mods – but whereas the latter bring hooks and groove, Polevaulter present nothing but bleak trudging, and while the former are focused on the channelling of rage with passion and a politically-charged message of unity, Polevaulter bring us blank nihilism delivered with a twist of crushing desolation. There are dance elements in the mix, but the mix is a cement mixer churning away a blend of grit and napalm, and this is nowhere more strongly evidenced than on single cut ‘Violently Ill’, a song so wrecked as to twist your intestines, while the air-raid siren howl of ‘GabWorld’ is chilling and unsettling.

The album winds up in a twitching, glitching, explosive mess in the form of the snarking, sparking, meltdown that is ‘any%WR’.

Hang Wave is harsh. There are no mellow moments, or softer interludes. There is nothing remotely pretty or pleasant about it, either. Outside, a storm rages – the second in as many days, and the tenth since October. The river just a few hundred yards away has burst its banks again. The sound of other people’s recycling rattles past my front door as it bowls down the street, and it’s a potent reminder of the reality and the palpable effects of climate change. It looks very much like we’re on the brink of WW3 s the UK and US dig deeper into their commitment to fire missiles into Yemen; Gaza is all but decimated; Trump looks like he’ll running for president once again, and no-one seems particularly concerned because they’re fretting about how they’ll pay the rent and the next energy bill. It’s a sick, sick world. All of it mounts up and compounds and you feel ill. With Hang Wave, Polevaulter do absolutely nothing to lift the mood or make you feel better, but Hang Wave is the perfectly bleak, nihilistic to these utterly fucked-up times.

AA

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West Wickhams – Vivre Sa Vie

Posted: 8 January 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

My introduction to West Wickhams was the day their debut single ‘He’s Acquired a New Face’ crashed my inbox in the Autumn of 2019. Something about it absolutely gripped me. Something about it was strange and different. And of course, it’s no longer available anywhere. But it was the only thing they had out at the time, and for various reasons, I didn’t get wind of subsequent releases, the first of which arrived almost a year later, and now it turns out I’ve got some catching up to do, as it turns out they’ve knocked out not one, but two five-track EPs since June 2022. But first, Vivre Sa Vie. A nine track EP!!!

Admittedly, when most of the tracks are around two to two-and-a-half minutes in length, it’s definitely got an EP running time, and would easily fit on a 10” record, but still.

It’s a joy to discover that while the songwriting has evolved and expanded, they’re still magnificently idiosyncratic, and still revel in every layer of echo and reverb going. ‘I am Sparkling Cyanide’ is a mid-tempo shimmery tune that’s almost poppy, bringing together early 80s synth pop with a dash of The Jesus and Mary Chain, all spun through a shoegaze filter. But ‘The Maddening Crowd’ is a piston-pumping blast of fucked-up psychedelic surf rock with an agitated bassline and relentless cheapy drum machine creating a rigid spine, over which even cheaper synth notes tinkle and twinkle.

With its nagging bassline and monotonous programmed beat ‘Carla Suspiria’ plunges into haunting early 80s goth territory, its heavy atmospherics reminiscent of early Danse Society. The vocals – like the guitar – are almost lost in a cavernous reverb. The atmosphere gets darker still on ‘I’m Spinning I’m Spinning’: the fat bass sound is pure Cure and listening to it feels like floating in space – detached, disorientated, out of body.

‘At the Cinema’ transforms the mundane into a heightened emotional experience, channelling Joy Division all the way, even down to the sounds of breaking glass.

The large number of tracks is by no means an indication that they’ve just bunged everything on there just because they’ve got it: Vivre Sa Vie is quality all the way, and they’ve utilised the space afforded by the longer format to structure the sequence in a way that feels like there’s a flow and a certain linearity, punctuating the really bleak gloomers with the poppier efforts.

The final track, ‘Damned Defiant!’ crashes in on a barrage of beefy percussion countered by chiming synths, and it’s a total assimilation of The Cure’s catalogue, and it’s rendered so magically, and in the space of two minutes and nine seconds that it can only be described as doomy goth-pop perfection.

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Scarlett Woolfe – Poor Suzy

Posted: 30 December 2023 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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14th December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Scarlett Woolfe has been honing her sound and style and building a fan base in London throughout 2023, taking her solo singer-songwriter project to the stage with a full band. Her debut single, ‘Poor Suzy,’ it seems, has been quite a while coming, but there’s no doubt that it was worth the wait.

Her own choice of tags include ‘alternative rock’, ‘dark wave’, ‘post-punk’, ‘dark-pop’ and ‘gothic’, and these very much serve to give a sense of what to expect: it’s spiky, edgy, and oozes attitude. There are hints of early Garbage in the instrumentation, with the poppy elements balanced by just the right amount of grit and bite.

The lyrics ‘Poor Suzy / lying in the snow / Poor Suzy / nowhere to go’ are hardly Sylvia Plath, but it’s all in the delivery. I doubt I’m first do draw the obvious comparison, and certainly won’t be the last when I proffer that the Scarlett’s voice – and her delivery, which swoops and dives, and shifts effortlessly from breathy to full from-the-centre of-the chest strong – is strongly reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux, It’s pretty punky, and pretty punchy to boot. Building to a climactic close, it all stacks up to make for a powerful single.

The artwork, too, captures the stark style of the post-punk era, and this feels something that’s been carefully thought out as a complete package by way of an introduction to the world of Scarlett Woolfe.

AA

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Velour Fog – Dopehead

Posted: 29 December 2023 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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23rd October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

I’m not quite sure what this is. There are a fair few fags being smoked, but there was some wide-brimmed hats being worn, too. What to make of it? The style says mid-80s goth, but there are some heavy stoner vibes… and then it slams in full metal. Long hair trailing and waving, heads banging in slow-mo, and rapped vocals over some sinewy guitars and a chunky bass.

It’s a bit RATM, it’s a bit Alice in Chains. It’s a bit OTT. It’s a bit retro. It’s crackers, but it’s good.

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Panik Flower – Dark Blue

Posted: 25 December 2023 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

New York’s Panik Flower, purveyors of shoegaze / super washed-out guitar indie rock released their debut single ‘Pretty Face’ in September 2022, and promise ‘dream pop with an understated heaviness. The result is a unique soundscape of soft harmonies, hard-hitting instrumentals and cutting lyricism that evokes the hazy nostalgia of distant memories – ones of love, loss and identity.’

Watching the video to single cut ‘Playground’, which features four of the bandmembers – presumably because it was shot before the current lineup coalesced – pulls a chord of sadness in my chest. It depicts an afternoon spent at a fair, emanating youthful carefree fun, the likes of which is never appreciated at the time, but only ever in hindsight. However aware of the finite nature of youth, there’s a period where it feels that your life lies ahead of you, and every day is a new day. And then, suddenly, it isn’t, and you’re clawing through life a day at a time, strangled by the suffocating sensation that every day that passes is a day lost.

As a jaded, downbeat, saddened old bastard facing decline, I can’t help but be envious of Panik Flower. My youth doesn’t seem so far away until I realize that the bands they remind me of, and the bands from who they draw influence, date from the 90s. The 90s feels like maybe a decade ago: the idea that 1993 was 30 years is both depressing and terrifying. But Dark Blue brings a flighty balance of joy and melancholy.

And so it is that ‘Charades’ brings wistful indie vibes and some bold wells of guitar which grow and grow into crashing waves by the song’s finale. The title track is a solid FX-heavy indie tune with evocative vocals which bear a folksy edge reminiscent of All About Eve’s Julianne Reagan.

The aforementioned ‘Playground’ brings a heavy melancholy and an ache to the chest with its chiming guitars and panging vocal melody, as well as a sturdy chorus. Things get both poppier and also heavier in the choppy, chuggy final track ‘Dilute Me’, which brings big guitars and Garbage vibes and attitude to wrap up a solid EP that packs great songs back to back.

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Cold in Berlin – The Body is the Wound EP

Posted: 19 December 2023 in Singles and EPs
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New Heavy Sounds – 19th January 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Cold in Berlin’s latest project, The Wounds looks to see the band scaling new heights of ambition, being a multi-record work consisting of an EP, The Body is the Wound, and an album, due in 2024, and promises ‘a musical vade mecum of what is to come in a fresh era for the band.’

I was gripped by Cold in Berlin from day one, on the release of their White Horse EP, a tense and intense burst of spiky goth which was razor-sharp and raging, bringing a zippy electro element to jagged guitars and a vocal that drew clear influence from Siouxsie and Skeletal Family. I must have conveyed my excitement pretty well, since my review is quoted on the BandCamp for the release, some twelve years on. Their debut album, Give Me Walls, still stands as a latter-day goth / post-punk classic.

Over the course of three further albums, the band have further defined and refined their style, becoming doomier, darker, heavier, but still with a clear commitment to concise and focused songwriting, proving that doom doesn’t have to be all about formless seven-minute dirges. I’m a fan of formless seven-minute dirges, but variety is the spice of life, and Cold in Berlin are one of those rare acts who’ve succeeded in creating their own niche in not one, but two crowded genre spaces.

Two of the EP’s four tracks have already been released as digital singles, both accompanied by visually striking videos. It so happens they’re the first two tracks on the EP, and they’ve been released in the order they appear. But the rest of the EP is absolutely on a par.

As the band write, ‘The lyrical themes dance around sex, murder, suicide and broken dreams, brought together in loose storytelling that allows listeners to add their own experiences and bring personal meaning.’ The words only begin to emerge after a few listens, after you’ve shaken your head clear from the initial impact. It’s a proper punch in the face, a full-force kick in the eye. The Body is the Wound packs four songs of equal quality back to back, and is as strong a document of the band’s work that they’ve laid down to date.

‘Dream One’ is a towering monolith which combines pulverising power chords with stark, icy vocals, and the effect is spine-tingling. Maya’s vocals have never sounded more powerful, more commanding than here. Then again, ‘Spotlight’, which slows the pace and amplifies the weight matches it, while emphasising the band’s doom leanings. It’s some heavy shit, alright, and hits with a punishing intensity.

The cuts which haven’t yet been unveiled are every bit as strong as those which have. ‘When Did You See Her Last’ twists stark synths and gothy guitars behind a chilling set of lyrics – the most spine-chilling I’ve encountered since ‘Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting’ by The Twilight Sad.

To describe the final cut, ‘Found Out’, as ‘poppy’ might be slightly misleading, but it’s a question of context. There’s some stealthy picked reverby guitar that’s pure 1985 goth that laces the verses with some fine texture before the thunderous chorus blasts in on a tidal wave of distortion. And in some ways, it very much recalls their earlier works, only thicker, denser, more driving, more powerful on the riff front, and they deliver all-out epic compressed into less than five and a half minutes.

Not only is there not one remotely lesser track on this EP, but it’s consistent and utterly relentless from beginning to end: no breathers, no ballads, no instrumental interludes. In short, The Body is the Wound is an utter blinder and absolutely blistering, and if the album is half as good, it’ll still be their best yet.

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Raven Said – Showtime

Posted: 12 December 2023 in Singles and EPs
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3rd November 2023

James Wells

New single ‘Showtime’ from Russian ‘occult wave’ / goth duo, Raven Said, arrives just over a year on from the EP Chants to Dissolve, and it promises to be the first from their next full-length release.

They describe it as ‘a kind of exciting prologue telling about the themes of a personal awareness and braving of one’s own internal boundaries. It’s transcendence of individual subconsciousness, even in the face of the inner fear or the despair. When you’re getting the power to create and transform despite seeming hopeless; when the curtain is raised and time freezes for a moment, when the stage is lit with the spotlights and the noise of the crowd is heard ahead, you take a step towards… Showtime!’

This reminds us that there is considerably more to Russia than the news of the Western media, where they’re broadly portrayed as ‘bad guys.’ We rarely stop to consider the reality of daily life in other countries – or, indeed, how our own countries are perceived internationally, while we’re getting on with everyday life, and generally struggling to stay afloat. In all this, we rarely see the people, the society, and fail to separate these things from their governments, their diplomats, and their military.

‘Showtime’ is what one might call a ‘banger’. Thumping disco beats and bold layers of synth provide the musical backing for the vocals, delivered in a brooding cross between a croon, a whisper, and a growl, packed with classic goth theatricality, and their touchstones of Clan of Xymox and second-wave goth acts like Rosetta Stone onwards, are strongly in evidence, crunching them together to create a synth-driven song that’s strong on both melody and groove.

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Watch: ‘No Justice’ by Orcus Nullify

Posted: 20 November 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Orcus Nullify has just unveiled their highly-anticipated new full-length album, Creatures Of The Wheel.

The new LP was influenced by the current of darkness running blatantly through the United States’ politics. This has brought with it a blood red flood of gun violence, inequality and cultural warfare.

Society’s eyes are closed tightly shut as it votes in well-branded neo-fascism. This blindness is an abandonment of a government for and of its people. There is indifference and lack of respect towards our fellow man. There’s a struggle between environmental policy and greed. It’s a short, dark road we’re on.

As a taster, they’ve released a video for the track ‘No Justice’, and a song that’s brimming with early 80s UK goth vibes. Watch the video here:

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Orcus Nullify is mainly a solo project of Bruce Nullify. Bruce is a multi-instrumentalist that has been creating music under this name since 2012.

Bruce had his start in the mid eighties, playing bass for a  hardcore band, Birth of a New Generation (BONG). During this time, Bruce was fortunate enough to open for acts like 7 Seconds, Agnostic Front and Gang Green. He then played guitar and performed vocals for a few other local bands in Central Florida.

After almost a fifteen year hiatus from music, Bruce returns with the band name Orcus Nullify – a name that he created for a previous band back in the 90s.

Despite his youth, Bruce had been hurt, seen people hurt and hurt others deeply. He saw that lies were very powerful and evil – something to be destroyed. Orcus is a mythological Roman god, specifically, the punisher of broken oaths. Orcus Nullify is the weapon which destroys lies and takes revenge for the oppressed.

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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.

AA

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