Posts Tagged ‘goth’

Flesh Field – Voice of the Echo Chamber

Posted: 6 November 2023 in Albums
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Metropolis Records – 3rd November 2023 (Digital) / 17th November 2023 (CD)

Christopher Nosnibor

Ian Ross’ electro-industrial project Flesh Field emerges, quite unexpectedly, from almost two decades of dormancy, twenty years in mute, to deliver ‘A concept work with each of its ten tracks representing stages of political radicalisation and violence, Ross states in the CD booklet that “believing falsehoods because those falsehoods reinforce our preferred narratives is not harmless. Promoting falsehoods to benefit your faction is not harmless, particularly in a well-armed society. If we remain locked in our own echo chambers, inevitably there will a voice of the echo chamber that speaks in the language of mass murder, believing it justified. This album describes that tragic inevitability.”

It’s not hard to ascertain ‘why now?’ While I’ve long become weary of the endless and continuing stream of ‘lockdown projects’ emerging, it’s a fair assessment that the pandemic did change everything. Confined, pressurised, and subjected to a relentless bombardment of news media, government ‘information’ and directives, and often with only social media for company beyond the four walls of home imprisonment, people struggled to separate fact from misinformation and conspiracy, reality from fiction and imagination.

I first really noticed the echo chamber some time before, in 2016, with the Brexit referendum in June, swiftly followed by the election of Donald Trump as US president in November. Both results seemed not only implausible, but nigh on impossible. No-one I knew or spoke to supported either as far as I knew – why would anyone vote for either of these outcomes? But against a backdrop of simmering tensions and social divisions and a general melee of things being pretty fucked, these seemingly unimaginable things came to pass. I would subsequently learn that relatives had voted in favour of Brexit ‘to see what would happen’. Fucking Boomers who won’t be around to live through the worst of the fallout. And this is how it goes when you have ageing populations and a swing towards the right in uncertain times. People seek to protect their own interests rather than the greater good. It doesn’t necessarily mean that echo chambers perpetuate falsehoods, but they do most certainly create confirmation bias, foster complacency, and distort reality by creating a bubble. And now… there is no way Ross could have predicted the dark turn that would assail the Middle East just a few short weeks ago. The divisions surrounding this conflict reverberate around the globe. And we watch. And we watch. It’s simply more TV, more unreality to many.

During Flesh Field’s protracted period of inactivity, their work continues to spread, like a fungus, or to perhaps use an analogy more akin to their own spheres of reference, like a virus, numerous tracks from their catalogue were placed in the soundtracks of films including the just released The Mill, TV shows such as True Blood and video games like Project Gotham Racing. Sometimes, being away is the best promotion.

But there couldn’t be a more appropriate time for Flesh Field to return, and Voice of the Echo Chamber is a powerful document reflecting these difficult times. The opening track, ‘

Crescendo’ stars strong, with a cacophony of babbling voices, before thunderous percussion and bold orchestral strikes build big drama. Not since Red Raw and Sore by PIG have I been struck by such a grand intro to an album, and this melds driving metallic guitars, industrial-strength techno beats and seething bombast. It’s a strong cocktail and one that hits the listener right between the eyes, paving the way for a set of ten insistent tracks all driven by loping sequenced synths and thudding hefty beats pushed to the fore and pumping, pulsating hypnotically. The are choral bursts woven into the dense fabric of the compositions, as well as strings and piano and incidental noise: ‘Catalyst’ crunches in with a harsh mechanised grind which gives way to a filly cinematic string segment before the pounding beat slams in and things get dark, like an industrial reimagining of Holst’s ‘Planets’ suite. The vocals are low in the mix and low in the throat. The delivery means the lyrics aren’t always especially audible, but the sentiment and energy is relentlessly loud and clear amidst the grunt, grind, and crackle.

‘Arsenal’ goes big, a gritty anthemic chorus paired with a crunchy industrial verse that draws together elements of NIN, KMFDM, and PIG, to big, big effect, being both attacking and cinematic at the same time. There’s plenty of attack here, but equally, Voice of the Echo Chamber is big on bold, widescreen, cinematic segments. ‘Manifesto’ is a monster, with all the guitars, all the orchestral work, and a relentless beat that hits hard and heavy and it all comes together to create a big, big sound. The pounding ‘Soldier’ is really big on impact, and contrasts well with the brooding, slow-crawling ambience and piano atmospherics of the unexpectedly gentle introduction to ‘Rampage’.

There’s a certain sense of uplifting empowerment to be found in the chorus of the last track, ‘Reset’. Ewe need this glummer of optimism in the face of so much relentless bleakness and gut-crushing darkness, which ends with more crowds, more shouting. You flinch and stall, because it’s too close, too real.

In places harsh and stark despite its enormity, Voice of the Echo Chamber is a strong, relentless, unyielding blast. I feel that this is a time to sit back, let things repercuss in their own time, and step back while Ian Ross blasts distortion, vitriol, and amplifies self-loathing with brutal force. Feel it.

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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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The Glass House Museum – The Committee

Posted: 21 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
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7th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

West Midlands post-punk trio , The Glass House Museum, comprising Joe and Jon Cummings (both vocals and guitar) and Lee Meadows (programming and bass), have been releasing music since 2017, but ‘The Committee’ is their first new material since the mini-album Artifacts in 2020.

It begins with some dark atmospheric grumbling, some gloomy bell chimes and squawks, presumably the menacing cries of the vultures mentioned in the song’s chorus, and also featured on the cover art. And, naturally, the collective noun for vultures is a committee. Despite this literal referencing and representation, it’s apparent that the song’s meaning is truly somewhat rather more figurative: ‘Tread careful, stranger,’ is the caution which starts the song’s lyrics.

With the sequenced rhythm section, they hold the solid core groove tight, giving it that quintessential goth vibe.

Over the years, I’ve witnessed many detractors – and even fans – ask why bands like The Sisters of Mercy don’t get a drummer. There are numerous reasons why they don’t, won’t, and never would, but the main one is that the drum machine is a defining feature of the sound of that particular strain of post punk which came out of Leeds in the early 80s. That hard, relentless beat, paired with a bass that followed it, bam-bam-bam-bam, overlayed with guitars, edged with a metallic clang and shrouded in chorus and reverb created a perfect tension that isn’t really like anything else – and this is why it’s provided the blueprint for so many bands over the last forty years.

But to dismiss it as being ‘derivative’ would be to miss the point: this is about heritage and lineage, and also there’s a certain degree of knowingness to making references that are, in some ways, I suppose, tribal in their function. If you know, you know, and you’re one of ‘us’. And so it is that the lettering on the cover is lifted from Siousxie and the Banshees’ A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, offers another referential insight into the band’s stylistic touchstones. The devil really is in the details.

The vocals aren’t of the spiky punkier aspect of post-punk, eschewing the edgy styles of Siouxsie and Skeletal Family’s Anne-Marie Hurst and if anything, are more in the vein of Julianne Reagan in her rockier moments.

But the most significant thing here is that the ingredients are well-blended and folded in together around a decent tune with some sharp energy and a solid chorus, and none of it feels formulaic or ripped off. In short, ‘The Committee’ is in the ‘classic’ style, but with a strong identity of its own.

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Black Angel – Lascivious

Posted: 15 October 2023 in Albums
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6th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Lascivious is Black Angel’s fifth album, which promises the band’s ‘hybrid Gothic Rock sound and taking flavors from their 80’s predecessors while adding new tones… retaining the essential gothic elements that drive his inspiration as originally provided by the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cult & Sisters of Mercy.’

Certainly, Lascivious is steeped in the stylistic tropes of the 80s, not least of all the thick four-four bass grooves and smashing snare drum which both dominates and defines the sound. But the first thing that strikes me, as a longstanding fan of that golden era in the 80s (I was too young for the start of it all but when The Sisters and The Mission started breaking the Top 40 singles charts between 86 and 88, it was a revelation which set me on a lifelong journey) is that the ‘new tones’ very much involve contemporary production. That is to say, it’s just that much cleaner and fuller, more polished than the true ‘vintage’ sound.

Ah, but they know the features of yesteryear. It’s been a while since I’ve heard a fadeout, but that’s just what happens on the album’s first track, ‘Killer’ – and it’s not the last time on the album they employ it either.

The drum intro on ‘Black Velvet Amphetamine’ is an on-point lift of the snare sound of the Sisters’ cover of ‘Gimme Shelter’, and many of the sounds can be pinpointed as having a certain root or origin. In fact, five seconds into the title track, it’s clear that the drums are lifted from ‘Heartland’, although it also leans on the Sisters’ cover of ‘Emma’ by Hot Chocolate, and it’s clear they’ve been raiding the early Sisters back catalogue – and fair play. The Sisters achieved some incredible sounds with minimal means, with ‘Temple of Love’ marking their first step up from an eight-track ‘studio’ in the run-down northern seaside town of Bridlington.

But if the drums and guitar work make big nods to The Sisters, Corey Landis’ croon is closer to that of Wayne Hussey than the cavernous baritone of Andrew Eldritch. One of the divisions between fan-camps when Hussey and Adams went and formed The Mission – and a source of tension when Hussey began offering songs with lyrics. I write as a fan of the Mission when I say that while they work in the songs, Hussey’s lyrics are more cliché patchworks than literary masterpieces (Eldritch played with and perverted cliché and did so poetically), and one problem with bands who followed in the wake (excuse the pun) of both The Sisters and The Mission is that they’ve had a tendency to ape the lyrical substance without really adding anything creatively unique

‘She’s My Suicide’ slips into more generic rock with a gothy edge, and makes me think of the bands who emerged following the cult but had more of a hair rock leaning, reminding me why despite all my teen goth credentials, I was pretty picky but then, right at the end, they pull out a really gritty, spindly guitar break that’s magnificent, reminding me of The March Violets. And this is a fair summary of the album as a whole: some really good bits, some solid songs, but some rather weak and generic aspects which hold it back in the bracket of ‘decent’ rather than ‘awesome’.

‘Bite It’ bristles with spiky guitars and a low-slung groove, and is perhaps the first song that seems to really fit with the sleaze implied by the album’s title, and ‘Want’ also achieves this, but suffers from trying too hard to be ‘More’. It’s a fair stab at bombast, but it’s hard to compete with the Sisters, especially when they’ve got Jim Steinman on hand, plus a whole host of backing singers and a monster budget for state of the art studio time. I’m sorry I’m not more undemanding. Halfway through ‘Dirty Little Secret’, I realise its chords are based on Motörhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’, and afford myself a small chuckle.

The slower, ‘Ticking of the Clock’ is driven by a crunchy, flangy bass that’s pure early Cure, and is one of the album’s real standouts, by daring to deviate from any obvious formula, and in fairness, the title track is low-slung, sleazy, and grinds out a dark seduction with style.

Sonically, Lascivious is more than solid, and Black Angel clearly know what their doing: there’s no question they have their sound and style absolutely nailed – and consequently, with this set of solid songs, the album will go down well with existing fans and a huge chunk of the goth crowd, and deservedly so.

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False Fed – Let Them Eat Fake

Posted: 11 October 2023 in Albums
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Neurot Recordings – 13 October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Let Them Eat Fake may be False Fed’s debut, but the members have between them a substantial catalogue of releases. The band comprises Discharge frontman Jeff Janiak, Amebix guitarist Stig C. Miller, Nausea, Ministry and Amebix drummer Roy Mayorga, and JP Parsons, and collectively, we’re told that this album sees them ‘all stepping outside their musical comfort zones to present an album of discomfort and rage in the face of reality’.

The solid, throbbing bass, glacial synth and squirming guitar that mark the album’s opening with ‘Superficial’ may come as something of a surprise given this preface: we’re deep in dark post-punk territory here, and it’s a huge shift from the hard, attacking pace of either Discharge or Ministry, as well as an immense stylistic departure. Janiak’s vocals, too, aren’t hardcore hollering, but a resonant baritone, at least unto he breaks our roaring and raging toward the end. The vibe is more UK goth circa ’86 than anything else, but this is fitting, given the many parallels between now and then. Yes, so much for progress: we’re right back to the 80s in a climate of fear and a new cold war… and not just a cold war. Instead of coming together to make some kind of effort to address the self-made catastrophe of climate crisis, we seem hell-bent on destroying one another.

‘The Tyrant Dies’ is more what you’d expect from this bunch: industrial-strength hardcore punk with a metal edge: the blasting punk fury of Discharge with the gritty heft of Ministry… but then the bridge slows things and we’re back in goth territory – well, goth as filtered through a strain of Rammstein – and the portentous refrain of ‘we will rise’ feels like a call to arms while at the same time calling on the ‘undead, undead, undead’ refrain of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’: it’s time for a resurrection.

This album hits harder as it progresses: the guitars drive harder, the drums roll heavier, and goth, punk, and metal tropes melt together to forge something devastatingly intense. I haven’t heard anything that amalgamates these elements – and so successfully – since Alaric’s End of Mirrors, released in 2016 – also on Neurot.

‘The Big Sleep’ is all driving fury, hell-for-leather drums, chunky, chugging metal guitars, and high-pomp vocals echoing from the chest. Meanwhile, ‘Dreadful Necessities’ comes on like Killing Joke with its taut compressed guitar sound and driving beat. It’s dense, and probably more accurately described as steely grey than dark, since it brings a strong, melodic chorus.

The title – Let Them Eat Fake – may be light-hearted on the surface – but obviously has darker undertones in terms of its reference to class division, and that’s one of the major factors behind the album’s anger. And this is an angry album. Let Them Eat Fake is also an album that has a clear trajectory, and it builds as it progresses, becoming louder, faster, harsher, more angry with each song. By the end, it’s positively incendiary, a full-on roar of fury driven with guitars that burn. And ultimately, it makes sense as an articulation of ‘discomfort and rage in the face of reality’. We’re all feeling it. Reality is pain. Let Them Eat Fake tells is like it is.

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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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Watch: ‘Surrender to my Will (The Enchantment)’ by NFD

Posted: 24 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Ahead of the re-release of the epic TRINITY E.P. this October NFD are proud to present stunning new video for a special edit of Surrender To My Will (No Mercy), The Enchanted version. Featuring American alternative DJ & Model, Ashely Bad in the role of the Witch and the NFD frontman in the role of the Demon the video is more of a movie short than a music video with strong atmospheric Gothic visuals tell the tale of a venture to Hell and back.

Watch the video here…

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Listen: ‘Purgatory’ by State of the Union

Posted: 15 August 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Electro-Industrial band, State Of The Union has unveiled their latest single release, ‘Purgatory’.

‘Purgatory’ is a song that explores the topic of suicide. As human beings, we go through the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’. Some of us have a harder time than others dealing with these emotions. Some of us can even get to the brink of suicide because we want to make it end as fast as we can.

In esoteric belief, a person who commits suicide disrupts their karmic flow and goes to a timeless place where one second could feel like a million years! This is very hard to comprehend within our own minds. To experience something like that, we have to have an out-of-body experience and travel to a very low-frequency dimension known as purgatory.

In some religions, purgatory is known as the place where spirits go to pay for their sins and burn karma before they move on to their next life experience. All in all, we will never know unless we go there. That’s why it is better to keep making powerful electronic music that makes club-goers dance their nights away to songs like ‘Purgatory.’

Listen here:

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Watch: ‘Illuminate’ by Our Frankenstein

Posted: 22 July 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Industrial metal band Our Frankenstein has just unleashed their new video for the single, ‘Illuminate’.

‘Illuminate’ is a song about finding the light that can exist in a barren and hopeless wasteland while building a better future for yourself. It’s about forging forward and discovering the strength in yourself to move on past a difficult time in your life.

‘Illuminate’ is available on all major streaming platforms including Bandcamp.

Watch the video here:

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Abrasive Trees – Nothing Exists for a Second Moment

Posted: 18 July 2023 in Albums
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16th June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

After a lengthy and sustained spell of creativity, dark Devonshire band Abrasive Trees are taking stock, reflecting and consolidating on their achievements to date, something which also affords newcomers an opportunity to catch up, March saw the release of Epocha, a compilation album which gathered their singles and EPs from 2019-2021, and now, housed in a sleeve which continues the thread of the design of its predecessor, they offer up a live album, which captures the band performing at hatch Barn, a venue close to their base in Totnes.

Live albums are notoriously tricky. So many live acts have an energy live that simply doesn’t translate when recorded. Then, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I recall meeting a metalhead in my first few weeks of university who was gushing in his enthusiasm for Iron Maiden “T’ Maiden” as he referred to them as being an amazing live as because “it sounds just like ont’ album”. This stuck with me, because I wasn’t accustomed to such thick Northern accents back then, and also because the idea of a live show so slick it sounded like the CD was a cause for consternation. Some people may think it’s a good thing, of course, but for me – even at the age of nineteen – it seemed to be missing the point of playing live. Especially when it’s a big band, who you’re likely to be watching on screens instead of looking at the stage. Might as well be watching a video at home for that.

Then there’s the recording itself: too much audience and it sounds like a shitty bootleg that’s as much that gobby tosser and his mate yammering away over the band; too hermetic and soundesky and it sounds dead and like there was no-one there, and all the vitality of the live experience is lost. This six-track release, once again mastered by Mark Beazely of Rothko, is magnificently realised: the sound is superbly crisp and clear – it’s obviously taken from the sound desk – but there’s a hum and a sense of space and audience, and it isn’t so clinical as to sound like another studio recording.

There’s irony in the title here: the live experience exists only in the moment, but here we are with a documents which gives us that second moment of existence. But of course, this is not the thing in itself, but a recreation, which captures only a part of it. Dimensions are missing: the sights, the ambience, and so on. This gives us not the full give experience, but an aural document of the band’s performance alone. They know this. We know this.

Four of the six tracks here are featured on Epocha in their studio forms, but the two mid-set songs, ‘Kali Sends Sunflowers’ and ‘Moulding Heaven With Earth’ are from the post-Epocha double-A-side single, and ‘Moulding Heaven With Earth’ is extended here from its near-six-minute form to almost eight her, making for a colossal centrepiece to the half-hour long set. Over its duration, the band sound solid, and assured, and they bring the detail of the studio recordings to their live show, with added dynamics and energy – the bass and drums in particular when they hit peak crescendo cut through in the way that only ever really happens live, and so it’s a credit that this release captures that energy.

The set opens with ‘Before’ from the Now You Are Not Here EP, and while abridged from its original six-and-a-half-minute sprawl to just three and a half, it conjures a magnificently atmospheric space, with chiming guitars, drifting ambient synth drones, hand-drums, and brooding sax, not to mention Easter-inspired vocalisations to build tension, and it segues into the ornate and delicate ‘Now You Are Not Here’ from the same EP, introducing vocals to the set, and finding the band at their most dramatic, evoking the quintessential goth sound from circa 1985-86. Mattthew Rochford’s voice quavers and you really feel as if you’re with him, teetering at the of the world… before the chorus-soaked maelstrom descends.

The soft swell of clean, reverby guitar on ‘Kali Sends Flowers’ is so very reminiscent of Wayne Hussey it sends an unexpected pang of nostalgia, echoing as it does both ‘Severina’ and the intro to ‘Deliverance’. But instead of Wayne’s overt drawing on Christianity in his lyrics, Abrasive Trees delve into other belief systems, and crash into some bold crescendos in the process.

The samples on ‘Moulding Heaven With Earth’ are studio-clear, without sounding at odds with the mix of the music itself, while the near note-perfect ‘Replenishing Water’ breathes deeper as the guitars burst through the air and it explodes into a monumental extended climax that’s absolutely killer and one hundred percent exhilarating. There is so much energy and life here. There is not much vocal, and for some reason this often takes me by surprise.

There isn’t much chat either, but then, on the evidence of this recording, Abrasive Trees’ set relies on building and maintaining tension rather than rapport.

‘Bound for an Infinite Sea’ begins with the crescendo and drives hard to an energetic, bass-driven finale, Rochford’s voice brimming with emotion – and delving into gloom before soaring into gripping tension – and it’s all of this and more that makes Nothing Exists for a Second Moment so great. It’s almost as if you were there, and very much wish you were, but Nothing Exists for a Second Moment achieves the rare feat of making you feel something almost like having been there, slipping a subliminal buzz in the process… It’s as close to a second moment as possible.

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