Posts Tagged ‘theatrical’

5th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The early days of goth threw out a host of disparate elements, and there were some quite specific regional variations, too. While Leeds was a hotbed of the emerging scene, what was happening there was stark, bleak, with a certain industrial leaning, likely in part on account of its post-industrial wastelands and the kind of depravation which was rife in the late Seventies and Eighties, but was particularly prevalent in the North. It was quite different from what the more overtly punky Siouxsie and the Banshees were doing, and different again from the art-rock of Bauhaus. And it’s really their 1979 debut single –which was only partially representative of their oeuvre – which is largely responsible for the last forty-five years of the association of goth with bats and vampires and the like. Westenra do very neatly – and legitimately – tie these aspects together, hailing from Yorkshire (Whitby, to be precise) and with a name lifted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which famously sees the titular lead character land in Whitby, a place which will forever be synonymous with the macabre, the haunting, the gothic.

Announcing their arrival in 2019, Westenra are relatively new arrivals to a scene that’s creaking with acts who’ve been going for centuries (ok, decades), and in that time they’ve built quite a fanbase, particularly in and around their home county, with a steady flow of releases and an active touring schedule, including some high-profile shows playing alongside The Mission and Theatre of Hate. All of this is well-deserved, as they spin their own blend of – as they pitch it – ‘Goth, Alternative Rock & Metal.’

‘Burn Me Once’ does feel like a progression from their 2021 debut full-length, First Light. The production is fuller, bolder, and while the intro track (Monitus) is a densely atmospheric sample-soaked curtain-raiser, it’s only a primer. The band’s massive riff-slinging progress is nowhere more apparent than on the first song proper, ‘Ghosts in the Machine’. It’s got guts, and hints of the expansive vibes of Fields of the Nephilim’s ‘Psychonaut’, due in no small part to the sweeping synths and chunky, hypnotic bass groove, which explodes into a cyclone of bold metal-tinged riffery, against which Luciferia belts out dominant, full-lunged vocals which draw influence from Siousxie, but which are entirely her own style.

‘Sweet Poison Pill’ steps up the atmosphere and the tension, serving up a blend of vintage goth with a cutting metal edge and a dramatic theatricality, aided by layered vocal tracks. It’s bold, it’s epic. There’s a lot going on here: ‘Time’ opens with skittering electronic energy before crashing into a crunching metal Siouxsie-infused attack – and then there’s a whopping great guitar solo which erupts seemingly from nowhere. ‘For All To See’ is a big, bold, riff-led beast of a track that packs the density.

Westrenra sure know how to slide between modes and moods: Burn Me Once is epic in every sense. It’s an album which radiates immense power, and there isn’t a weak track here. Against a densely-woven musical backdrop, Luciferia delivers consistently strong vocals.

With this album, Westrenra deliver on all their promises, and then some, with a set of songs that’s brimming with energy and brooding introspection. And as much as they’re a goth band, Burn Me Once is an album that sees them pushing out in all directions far beyond genre limitations. Ultimately, Burn Me Once is a high-energy rock album with dark undercurrents which course relentlessly, and the quality of the songwriting is outstanding.

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The catalogue of material released by Papillon de Nuit, the ever-shifting, ever-evolving musical project of Stephen Kennedy, continues to expand with the release of single number eight.

Kennedy’s approach to the project is both interesting and unusual, with each song recorded at a separate session, often not even fully-formed in terms of writing and arrangement beforehand, and realised with various guest musicians and vocalists. Retuning once more to Young Thugs studio in York, ‘The Pilgrim’s Arc’ again sees Stephen handle a considerable range of duties, from drums to grand piano and providing spoken and sung vocals, as well as writing and arranging the song itself, while joined by Michalina Rudawska (cello) and Karen Amanda O’Brien (spoken word).

The Exceptional Mr Hyde make a guest appearance here, providing ‘menacing spoken word’, while Steve Whitfield  added bass and guitar, as well covering production work

The result is a striking, dramatic, percussion-driven piece with some chunky bass, and layered vocals creating an almost schizophrenic mutter behind a soaring melody.

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15th August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

In recent years, the field of doom has expanded in terms of range, and has, at the same time, become rather more populous. One suspects in part that because these are pretty fucking dark times, increasingly, people are turning to dark music to articulate their own challenges, and to navigate the world around them. One welcome development is the number of female-fronted doom bands with vocalists who bring not only powerful voices, but a strong emotional force to the heft of the instrumentation.

Amnesiak pitch themselves as ‘Alternative Doom Rock’ – a subtle but necessary distinction from the proliferation of doom metal, which is something rendered clearly on this, their debut album. Containing just seven tracks, the longest of which is just under five minutes in duration, and with a couple that clock in at under three, it’s a concise document – and that’s welcome, because unlike so many other releases in the genre, which can at times be indulgent and err towards the overlong, and leaving you feeling drained, Arkfiend leaves you hankering for more.

The instrumental intro track, ‘Deamoniacus’ is something of a trope nowadays when it comes to heavy music – and screamy post-hardcore – but here it works differently, with samples reverberating in torturous extreme stereo, the sounding of the muttering clamour of a fractured internal dialogue which crowds the mind with discomfort, paving the way for the slow, majestic ethereal grandeur of ‘Archfiend’, which blends sepulchral doom with soaring vocals which float to the skies. ‘Flamed In Solitude’ plunges into darker territory, with dingy guitars squirming queasily over loping percussion. Layered vocal harmonies contrast with the thick guitars and booming bass, and those vocals sit between doom and folk, elevating the song to unexpected heights.

The dynamics of each song is something special, and the stylistic interplay sets them apart from their peers. ‘Pillory Of Victory’ is theatrical, gothic, dramatic in a theatrical sense, but also in an intense real and immediate sense – and at two and a half minutes there’s a moment where the riff skews and things take a sinewy turn for the more discordant, before the riff returns, hard and heavy. And yeas, I’m one of those people who obsessively pinpoints the moment when a song switches, when it moves from ‘yes!’ to ‘woah, fucking yes!’ – and it all comes down to a second or so. I’ve digressed, but so have Amnesiak, until they come around to the churning riffery of ‘Bootlicker’, which is truly monumental. Everything comes together here, and this is track of the album. For all its dirty guitar grind and dark lumbering riffery, it’s majestic, epic, a song that fills you up and lifts you up with its power. The final track, ‘The Last Rattle’ is a perfect balance of light and dark, weight and melody, reflective and sad and uplifting in equal measure. The quality of the songwriting, and the attention to detail on display here is quite something.

Arkfiend places Amnesiak comfortably alongside Cold in Berlin and Cwfen – and that’s a strong recommendation.

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17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Raoul Sinier first caught my attention with the release of Guilty Cloaks, although he had already built a substantial catalogue of strange and surreal works in the preceding years, notably Brain Kitchen (2008) and Tremens Industry (2009). After Welcome to My Orphanage (2013) and Late Statues (2015), I rather lost track – something which is clearly to my detriment – and then he fell silent following Death, Love and Despair in 2018. Perhaps that title was a revelation beyond any of the contents or accompanying notes. It’s not anyone’s business, regardless.

What matters is that the arrival of Army of Ghosts is a welcome one, and one which is heralded in the accompanying press release with the fanfare that ‘Raoul Sinier is back — more hybrid and unpredictable than ever’. We go on to learn that ‘His new album is a bold fusion of everything that made electronic music iconic, layered with sample work straight out of hip-hop’s golden age. Add in overdriven guitars, throbbing bass, flashes of rock, prog, and funk, and you’ve got a sonic landscape that’s as explosive as it is unique. Floating above it all is Sinier’s signature ethereal voice, a haunting counterpoint to the beautiful chaos below.

Melancholic yet sharp, lyrical yet raw, his music walks the line between introspection and confrontation.’

The appeal of Sinier’s work is its inventiveness – although with Guilty Cloaks, I will admit that I was drawn by a certain post-punk vibe, too – and Army of Ghosts is certainly inventive.

The album’s first song, ‘Phony Tales’ switches between Phantom of the Opera theatrical verses and brutal industrial choruses worthy of Trent Reznor. It’s not just the surge of sound, but the crashing, metallic bin-lid snare that dominates the mix and completely spins your head. It may only last two minutes and ten seconds, but it’s intense.

Much of Army of Ghosts is intense, but in different ways. The drums are uncommonly dominant, and Sinier’s vocals often invite parallels with A-Ha’s Morten Harket, but crucially, said vocals are wrapped in a broad range of forms. ‘Brace Yourself’ offers a lethal cocktail of this, and that, and the other, led by some trip-hop drumming and proggy guitar work, before tapering out with a dark, sonorous bass. It’s that same insistent, baggy beat and Bauhaus-meets-metal explosion which shapes ‘Disperse’, a word which has enhanced implications and resonance of late.

In its eclecticism, Army of Ghosts comes up trumps. ‘Walking Through Walls’ offers springy post-punk energy in the vein of Bauhaus at their best, while the title track straddles post-punk and Nu-Metal, and then post-rock, with sludgy bursts of low-end distortion and…piano. Unexpectedly, it calls to mind the stylistic swathe of Bowie’s 1: Outside, an album which knows no borders.

Sinier knows how to spring surprises, and the wild intro to ‘Spectral Ocean’ is indeed wild, a furious flurry of violin, layered and awash in echo abruptly giving way to a low-slung thunderous bass groove that’s got goth stamped all over it and would have been perfectly at home on the new Rosetta Stone album – and that’s before we get to the brittle, picked guitar and sturdy mechanical drumming that pumps away relentlessly. After the widescreen expanse of the moody ‘Distant Wildlife’, which builds to a dark, slow-burning climax, driven by a dense, throbbing bass, the final track, ‘Neon Sign’ pairs things back and goes all out on the haunting atmosphere, with serrated guitars cutting through drifting synths and a contemplative vocal performance – before suddenly closing with a blast of drone metal straight off Earth 2.

The thing about Army of Ghosts is that it is both detailed and direct, sometimes simultaneously, but it is never predictable. The song titles do not offer a clear overarching theme, but the ghostly and paranormal hover in every shadowy corner of this theatrical and imaginative set of songs – a set that’s wildly varied, but consistent in its quality. Raoul Sinier is most definitely back, and this is very much a good thing.

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Pennsylvania-based artist Celeste Corsano presents her new single ‘Nightbird’, the dark side of the ying-yang, following her recently-released debut single ‘Sunlight Gazing’. An innovative singer-songwriter, Corsano is the latest artist to be added to the growing roster of the blossoming Montclair, NJ-based indie label Magic Door Record Label.

Corsano’s music blends poetic lyricism with adventurous arrangements, unexpected rhythms and a distinct emotional range — from ethereal and moody to playful and bold. With a natural use of mixed meters and layered vocal timbres, her fearless approach to storytelling conveys a deeper truth.

“I live in a rural area. There’s nights when I can’t sleep, thinking about my living dreams, desires and worries… the noise and chaos of my circumstances and feelings crowd my mind. When that happens, I lie in bed and look out my window and see the shadows of trees, lightning bugs flash, and sometimes hear the cry of a fisher cat… so eerie and wild. I hear the call of an owl, or see a bird that’s been disturbed from its perch and fly to another spot. The sights and sounds become part of a message to me…. a nightbird… calling to me,” says Celeste Corsano.

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For the past year, Corsano has been working with renowned producer Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Luna, Crash Harmony) at Magic Door Recording Studio, who produced, recorded, mixed and mastered this release, as well as several recordings to follow.

With Ketchem also on drums, this single also features fantastically notable guitarist James Mastro (The Bongos, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter, Patti Smith, John Cale) and keyboardist-bass player David Nagler of Nova Social (who has also played with Joan Baez, Aaron Neville, Rosanne Cash, Andrew Bird, Steve Earle and Yo La Tengo).

“I came to Ray Ketchem with iPhone recordings of my keyboard, voice, lyrics and a dream…. and for the next few months I traveled 1 1/2 hours one way to have one of the best times and learning experiences of my life. Ray was the producer, drummer and engineer for my songs, He created the fundamental groundwork and direction for Nightbird with his distinctive drum riff,” says Celeste Corsano.

“Besides my demo, the drums were a catalyst and inspiration for guitarist James Mastro and synth player-bassist David Nagler to create the full tapestry, against which I could express myself vocally when it came time to record my tracks. I remember feeling so elated and on a musical high watching and listening to Mastro record the tracks for ‘Nightbird’. Those hours are unforgettable. He was a part of the music, his entire body and expression connected to his guitar, rippling like water to its sounds. The guitar work expresses the lyrics so perfectly. It was very moving to watch.”

She adds, “David Nagler selected the coolest sounds and added so much to the attitude of this song. When the bass first comes into the song it sends chills. Working with Ray, James and David was such an inspiration. All three of them are so down to earth, personable and into the music. They are all legendary in the music realm and I’m so fortunate to have worked with them.”

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Having completed a trilogy of experimental songs, Papillon de Nuit begin a new cycle, reaching for the epic, and with a more structured (but no less adventurous) approach. With Steve Whitfield on board (The Cure, The Mission) as Producer, and an array of incredibly talented, diverse musicians and singers, Ariadne is the first release in this phase. We are delighted to share it with you.

Continue with us on our journey….

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14th January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

They only released their debut single on 1st December last year, and here we are, not quite halfway through January and we’re being presented with single number three.

While Argonaut’s track-a-month schedule for their ‘open-ended’ album Songs from the Black Hat, matching only that of The Wedding Present in 1992, seemed like the pinnacle of prolific – not to mention the ultimate advertisement for the DIY approach – three singles in six weeks must surely have the makings of a record (pun partly intended). As of this moment, though, we don’t know what their longer-term aim is, or even if there is one, beyond releasing new songs as soon as they’re ready, and if that is their MO, it’s admirable. Without the need to work to the schedules – or budgets – or a label, their only limitation is their own time and energy.

I had initially noted, following ‘Scarlet’, and ‘Amber’, a theme of colours linking their songs, but perhaps it’s female names. Or perhaps it’s pure coincidence, and they have simply plucked one-word titles to denote their songs.

‘Jude’ – which comes with appropriately dramatic artwork, somewhere between swooning gothic drama and pre-Raphaelitism, the source of which I haven’t been able to identify – once again features the voice of poet Monica Wolfe, here whispering, and, as credited, ‘breathing’. These contributions are significant in rendering an atmospheric composition, particularly in the introduction, before the arrival of the piano – of which there are, in fact, two, adding layers to the brooding theatricality of the song, and Stephen Kennedy’s voice.

The feel – particularly in his delivery, with some quavering intonation, and enveloped in a spacious reverb – is very much gothic folk, as he casts introspection, while chasing ghosts.

‘Will the world miss me?’ I whisper

And sigh, as my life drifts away.’

It’s moving, poetic, and powerful, presenting a straight-ahead contemplation on mortality – not in some cheesy ‘romantic’ gothic style, and not in a crass emo way, but a rare sincerity.

Somewhat ironically, in our teens and twenties, we tend to agitate about death, while also treating it with a flippancy, because it’s what happens to old people, but as we grow older, we go out of our way to avoid thinking or talking about it, because as we begin to lose parents, uncles, aunts, and even – increasingly – peers, shit gets more real than we can handle. Invariably, we bury our heads in the sand, shrug off life insurance and toss making wills into the distant future along with pensions, laughing darkly how we never expect to retire anyway.

In the final minute, the song swerves into more electropop territory as the rippling piano combines with a crisp, insistent drum beat. It’s a magical, ethereal moment, which is but fleeting, like dappling sunlight through the branches of trees in a woodland on a breezy day. In many ways, this captures the essence of the song and its sentiment, in its fleeting ephemerality, a metaphor for life itself.

It ends suddenly, with only inaudible whispers fading to the close, and again the metaphor stands. This is perhaps their strongest and deepest release to date, and best absorbed by candlelight, with a large measure of something intoxicating.

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Metropolis Records – 10th January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

According to their bio, ‘Morlocks are a Swedish act who combine elements of industrial rock, neo-classical, darkwave and metal with epic production values to create an exciting hybrid sound. Having issued the long-awaited and well received album Praise The Iconoclast in late 2023, they subsequently promoted it with two US tours in 2024, both in support of their friends and occasional collaborators KMFDM.’

Asked about the inspiration behind the song, the band state: “Watch the world from a distance. Get angry at first, but also inspired. Take the darkest parts of it and twist them into something weird, beautiful and batshit insane – something that you could either dance to, brood in the shadows to or scream at the top of your lungs at the moon. Preferably all of the above. Everything can be turned into art, and art must hurt. Situation normal: all fucked up.”

‘Everything can be turned into art, and art must hurt’ is a phrase which stands out here. It may seem somewhat dramatic, but to summarise Buddha’s teaching, ‘all life is suffering’, or ‘life is pain’, and the function or art – true art – is to speak in some way of deep truths of what it is to be human. Art must therefore, reflect life and capture something of the existential anguish of the human condition. If it doesn’t, it isn’t art, it’s mere entertainment. And if the idea that ‘Everything can be turned into art’ may superficially seem somewhat flippant, a diminishment of serious matters, if the work is, indeed art, and not entertainment, then the obverse is true: using the pain of life as source material is the only way to interrogate in appropriate depth those most challenging of issues. In other words, making art from trauma is not reductive or to cheapen the experience – but making entertainment from it very much is.

There’s a snobbery around what constitutes art, even now, despite the breakthroughs made through modernism and postmodernism. It’s as if Duchamps had never pissed on the preconceptions of art for the upper echelons of society who still maintain that art is theatre, is opera, is Shakespeare, that art can only exist in galleries and is broadly of the canon. This is patently bollocks, but what Morlocks do is incorporate these elements of supposed ‘high’ art and toss them into the mix – most adeptly, I would add – with grimy guitars and pounding techno beats. Art and culture and quite different things, and those who are of the opinion that only high culture is art are superior snobs who have no real understanding of art or art history.

The five songs on Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi are therefore very much art, although that doesn’t mean they don’t also entertain. ‘The S.N.A.F.U. Principle v3.0’ arrives in a boldly theatrical sweep of neoclassical strings and grand drama – and then the crunching guitars, thumping mechanised drums and raspy vocals kick in and all hell breaks loose. Combining the hard-edged technoindustrial of KMFDM – which is hardly surprising – with the preposterous orchestral bombast of PIG and Foetus bursting through and ascending to the very heavens, it’s complex and detailed and thrillingly dramatic, orchestral and choral and abrasive all at once.

With tribal drumming and bombastic, widescreen orchestration, ‘March of the Goblins’ has a cinematic quality to it, which sits somewhat at odds with the rather hammy narrative verses. It seems to say ‘yeah, ok, you want strings and huge production and choral backing to think it’s art? Here you go, and we’re going to sing about radioactive dinosaurs like it’s full-on Biblical’. It’s absurd and audacious, and makes for a truly epic seven and a half minutes of theatrical pomp that’s admirable on many levels. Ridiculous, but admirable.

‘The Lake’, split over two parts with a combined running time of over ten minutes explores more atmospheric territory, with graceful, delicate strings, acoustic guitar, and tambourine swirling through swirling mists before breaking through into a surging tower of power, melding crunching metal guitars with progressive extravagance, and medieval folk and martial flourishes.

Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi is remarkably ambitious and unashamedly lavish in every way. Quite how serious are Morlocks? They’re certainly serious about their art. But while delivered straight, one feels there’s an appropriate level of knowingness, self-awareness in their approach to their undertaking. And that is where the art lies: theatre is acting. The stories told are drawn from life, and resonate with emotional truth: but the actors are not the action, and there is a separation between art and artifice. Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi is something special.

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Bleeding Light – 3rd January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Under The Sanguine Moon is the fourth album from Denver, Colorado-based goth rock band, Plague Garden. As the pitch tells it, ‘The album features a prominent vampiric theme. Delve into the catacombs of a nocturnal world, where tales of bloodlust at dusk reign supreme. Listen to fantastical tales of the undead and even a little bit of Greek mythology added in for variety… From the album’s blood-red artwork to it’s [sic] hemophilic lyrics, this LP is bound to please even the darkest children of the night. For fans of gothic rock, post punk, deathrock, darkwave.’

Having got into gothness around 1987, just on the cusp of teenagerdom, I would come to discover that, just as with metal, this was a genre with many disparate threads. The vampiric fascination, which represents the popular image of goth – and espoused by the myriad dark souls who descend upon Whitby for the legendary goth weekends and trace the steps of Dracula following the small port town’s prominence in Bram Stoker’s genre-defining novel – is a league apart from the origins of the music which would come to be synonymous with early goth – predominantly Leeds-based acts such as The Sisters of Mercy, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, The March Violets, and Salvation. You won’t find a hint of vampirism here. Bauhaus’ debut single, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ predates the emerging Leeds scene, and the whole vampire / spooky template can be pinned squarely on this single, which can’t exactly be considered representative of their output as a whole. But still, people like to latch on to easy tags.

This perhaps unduly preface is to say that the goth / vampire thing is something I find difficult to fully embrace. Goth bands doing vampy stuff is simply not the same as Steven Severin providing live soundtracks to classic silent movies.

The other thing I find difficult to really align is that while there is a whole new wave of acts of a goth persuasion emerging, there are a lot of goth acts loitering and lingering featuring older guys – in the forty to fifty-plus demographic, which I will, in the interest of transparency record as being my demographic – doing this. Plague Garden do sit within this bracket.

Under The Sanguine Moon is a solid album. It sits in the third wave goth bracket alongside the likes of Suspiria and the Nightbreed roster of the late ‘90s – brooding, theatrical, with booming baritone vocals that are sort of aping Andrew Eldritch but fall into that more generic ‘fah-fah-fah’ singing down in the throat style. With piano taking a more prominent position among the standard musical arrangement of drums / bass / guitar, Plague Garden create a layered sound which does stand out from many of their peers, and they so absolutely nail that quintessential goth sound with the solid foot-down four-square Craig Adams style bass groove. This is nowhere better exemplified than on ‘Shadows’, with its spectral guitars, the perfect cocktail of chorus, flange and reverb creating that brittle, layered sound which defined the 80s sound.

The vocals are mixed fairly low, and it’s the bass and drums which dominate, and this is a good thing – not because the vocals are bad, but because it puts the atmosphere to the fore, and means the lyrics are less obvious, which is probably no bad thing.

‘The Dirty Dead’ is a crunchier, punkier take on the sound, and carries hints of early Christian Death – think ‘Deathwish’ – and this carries on into ‘Pandora’.

The cover they mention is ‘#1 Crush’ by Garbage, an early B-side that’s one of the hidden gems of their catalogue. Plague Garden’s take is unsurprisingly lugubrious, theatrical, and makes sense as a song selection with its nagging, picked guitar part and crunching percussion.

There’s a flood of blood at the end, with ‘Blood Fingers’ and ‘Blood Debt’ closing the album. The former, haunting, hypnotic, a classic moody goth cut, the latter offering a slower, dreamier take on the former. These guys have got their sound honed to perfection, and if you’re into more trad goth delivered with a more contemporary spin – but not too contemporary – you probably can’t go too far wrong with Under The Sanguine Moon.

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Dark electronic music producer, MISS FD has just released her latest bewitching cinematic gothic music video for her song, ‘Curse Breaker’.

‘Curse Breaker’ is a liberating dark piano piece with laid bare female vocals that channel raw emotion, empowerment, and mystique.  A spell unbinding transformative song about overcoming and letting go.

The music video, directed by long-time collaborator and friend Tas Limur, was filmed in a Victorian mansion in Historic Old Louisville, KY.

The video follows MISS FD through a curse-breaking séance which releases her from a haunting apparition, symbolizing freeing oneself from the binds and limitations of the past.

Watch it here:

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