Aural Aggravation

7th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Having emerged in 2016, Metamorph are, in the grand scheme, relative newcomers to the goth scene, but the voice behind the name, Margot Day was an integral part of the 80’s NYC underground music scene while fronting the legendary Goth band The Plague with their album Naraka in 1987.

While goth tends to be associated with the early 80s, it was in 87/88 that the genre broke the mainstream, with The Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland and The Mission’s Children going massive on an international level. It was a boom time slightly below the mainstream radar, too, with Fields of the Nephilim releasing two major albums (Dawnrazor in ‘87 and The Nephilim in ’88), and Christian Death’s controversial landmark Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ also being released in ’88. These were still dark times – the opening of Disneyland Paris provided only so much distraction from the fact this was the height of the cold war.

No doubt the Metamorph story, whereby Margot ‘escaped temporarily to the jungle by the sea to conjure new witchy Metamorph songs… after she had a miracle healing and felt summoned to make more music’ will be repeated ad infinitum, so instead, I’ll skip straight to the new single, the first new material since the Kiss of the Witch concept / narrative album released in September 2022.

‘Witchlit’ may not belong to the same suite of songs as the album, but there are clear thematic connections, and it’s a corking slice of quintessential gothy electropop, dark, seductive, a driving beat and bass and a teasing twist of menace and aggression with an explosive chorus that speaks of obsessive tendencies and longing – and it’s all tightly packed into a concise two and a half minutes. ‘Witchlit’ is single perfection.

AA