Aural Aggravation

4th September 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

So here we are in 2026, and while I’ve been suggesting that there’s a goth revival simmering up for a fair while now – I mean years rather than months – if finally seems to be upon us. TV:AM, Sick Man of Europe, and Mouth Ulcers in particular have been leading a(nother) new wave of bands whose sound is steeped in the old-school sound.

Perhaps Lol Tolhurst’s assessment in his recent book – plainly entitled Goth – is right. He devotes much verbiage to aligning the emergence of the first goth bands with Thatcher’s Britain in the late 70s and early 80s. This is by no means a groundbreaking, or even a new, framing of the birth of this disparate scene, and he really does labour this point throughout the book. Fair enough: he was there, living through it, and it was this, and a sense of being an outsider, which compelled him and Robert Smith to form The Cure. He also details how Manchester was the very definition of dereliction and deprivation, and that Joy Division ‘s bleak sound is the aural encapsulation of this. Also fair enough, but his entry for The Sisters of Mercy is barely a page long, reducing them to almost a footnote in the history of goth, while making no mention whatsoever of the other Leeds bands who emerged around this time. It’s his book, and his perspective, but to completely bypass the very epicentre of the emerging goth scene of the early 80s isn’t merely an oversight, it’s a misrepresentation.

This preface is necessary when approaching ‘Bourbon’, the debut single from Los Tres Mortales. While based between New Jersey, Ohio, and California, bringing together Caroline Blind and CWHK of Sunshine Blind with Troy Payne of The Wake. As the band bio recounts, ‘Following Sunshine Blind’s original run, Caroline continued making music with members of The Wake, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Faith and the Muse, The Sisters of Mercy, Sweet Ermengarde, Children on Stun and Switchblade Symphony’. As such, there’s a direct link between Los Tres Mortales and the original Leeds scene, which is as significant as that to the US scene and acts connected with the Cleopatra label (which was responsible for the release of the first comprehensive March Violets compilation, The Botanic Verses in the US in 1993).

Where I’m going here is in two directions at once: the first is that 2026 bears some strong parallels to those dark days of the late 70s and early 80s. Back then, the north of England copped it harder than London and its wider sprawl, and the same is true now, but the bottom line is that both here and in the US – supposedly wealthy nations – social divisions, particularly between class, and wealth have reached a new extreme. As a measure, CEOs earned the entire year’s salary of their average employee faster in 2026 than in any year previous – the 6th January, to be precise. Throw in climate change, world war, and the fact AI (not immigrants) is killing job opportunities and could well lead to the hastened demise of the species, and there’s reason to be pessimistic. Goth was always dark music for dark times, but unlike other genres – metal being perhaps an obvious example – goth balances nihilism with doomed romanticism and a certain poeticism.

And this is precisely what Los Tres Mortales give us with ‘Bourbon’. It’s dark, and revels in images of self-destructive rock ‘n’ roll excess. Because if the world’s going to end, why not see it out while spiralling into personal oblivion, soaked in booze and surrounded by chaos?

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Spindly guitars are nailed down by a thunking gritty bass, which is in turn melded to hefty rolling drums that are the absolute quintessence of that early 80s goth sound. Caroline’s dramatic vocals bring that Siouxsie / Skeletal family feel, while Troy’s brooding baritone whispers and growls a later below, replicating that taut dynamic that defined both The March Violets and Floodland-era Sisters. ‘Bourbon’ adds a dash of spice with the kind of filthy swagger reminiscent of The Batfish Boys (‘Swamp Liquor’ in particular). It’s a cracking debut, and one which brings together the different qualities of all of the contributors to deliver something which hits the bullseye on the first shot.

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