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.
AA
Aural Aggravation 