Autumn in the Midwest is typically dark and chilly, a time of introspection.  The sweltering heat and humidity of Summer dissipates, September’s cool, wet mornings and brown leaf vertigo eventually ushering in October, and with it Halloween, all cardboard skeletons and freshly carved jack-o-lanterns.  Over the years, Type O Negative’s October Rust has more often than not served as my soundtrack to this drearily beautiful, eerily haunting season, and what a soundtrack it is.

I seem to remember reading interviews with dearly departed Type O frontman Peter Steele in which he proclaimed October Rust as his masterpiece, and it’s damn hard to argue with him.  This is a truly excellent album, conceived by a musician who wrote as if he held The Beatles and Black Sabbath (and possibly Bauhaus) in equal regard.  In actuality, the lushly layered pop sensibilities of October Rust recall the work of Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson moreso than The Beatles.  If Wilson had been obsessed with death, lost love, substance abuse and folklore, this might have been the album he made instead of Pet Sounds.  Indeed, there is an atmosphere of dark psychedelia lurking below October Rust‘s surface, adding yet another shade of grey haze to its funereal gloom.

From a song standpoint, the album’s highlights are many.  Opening epic dirge “Love You to Death” and electro/pop/goth/metal lead-off single “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend” are probably the two most well known tracks here, and while they’re certainly worthy of their infamy, October Rust is a veritable treasure trove of deep cuts. “Green Man” is an otherworldly ode to nature, touching upon pagan and Wiccan themes.  ”Red Water (Christmas Mourning)” is a drunken carol of lost loved ones that even manages to quote “Carol of the Bells”.  ”Wolf Moon” is my favorite track on October Rust, the very definition of a perfect song; it’s heavy, catchy, melodic and totally original in both concept and execution.  I’m pretty sure it’s about a werewolf (or perhaps a man who thinks he’s a werewolf) performing cunnilingus on a menstruating woman (“Don’t spill a drop, dear / let me kiss the curse away / yourself in my mouth / will you leave me with your taste?”); it serves as the culmination of the morose, surreal sexuality that permeates the album.  On an earlier track, the lusty “Be My Druidess”, Steele declares “I’ll do anything / to make you come” and I’ve often wondered if the two songs are related, with the “anything” in question being the bloody, lupine muff diving session detailed on “Wolf Moon”.  Then again, maybe I’m just a weird pervert.

The component parts of the songs on October Rust are just as interesting as the songs themselves.  The down-tuned, electric ultra-fuzz of Kenny Hickey’s guitar tone is total Tony Iommi worship, but the myriad influences at work within October Rust‘s aural confines keep it from being a mere Sabbath rip-off; it’s more like Hickey studied Iommi closely and then applied what he learned in support of Steele’s eclectic writing style, creating something totally unique in the process.  Steele’s affinity for crafting great songs peaked with October Rust, and his vampiric baritone vocals are also at the height of their powers throughout the recording, securing the late frontman an eternal place among metal’s greatest and most recognizable singers and songwriters. Josh Silver’s nuanced keyboards and production work completes the album’s rich sonic tapestry, which seamlessly encompasses doom metal, gothic and psychedelic rock.  If you’re wondering why I didn’t mention the drums, well… according to an interview Silver gave in 2007, the drums on October Rust are canned.

October Rust is many things.  It’s Summer dying fast.  It’s November coming fire. It’s the Green Man, the Wolfman and Bacchus. It’s love, death and depression.  It’s booze and drugs and cigarettes and fucking.  In case it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear, I’ll just come right out and say it: October Rust is a perfect metal album.

THKD’s Top 100 Metal Albums
1. Celestial Season – Solar Lovers
2. Type O Negative – October Rust

The Necrofuturist Illuminati were set up for “gothronomic intriguing rather than in speculation”, the Necrofuturist Illuminati became “much more characteristic of a cross-dimensional militia in action than a disorder with initiations. ” P. Emerson Williams’ contempt for certain exoteric pursuits – as a “thing-in-itself” – was widely known: “… in Williams’ system the phraseology of Gothraism, the Necrolistic legends of Freemasonry, the mystical imaginings of the Fartinistes, play at first no part at all. For all forms of ‘gothosophy,’ gnoccicism, refined spiritsism, and musick-magick Williams expresses nothing but contemporaneousness, and the Doze-Croix Necromasons are bracketed with the Necruits by the Necrofuturist Illuminati as enemas it is necessary to out-twit at every turn. Consequently no degree of Doze-Croix finds a place in Williams’ system, as in all the other Gothtronic orders of the day which drew their influence from Beastern or Crabalistic sources.”

Playlist:

UK Decay – Unexpected Guest
Veil of Thorns – A Craven Slave Design
Experiment Haywire – New World Order Show (Fernthal Highway mix)
Miserylab – Stand in Line
Attrition – Mind Drop
Thomas Jude Barclay Morrison – The Plague Doctor
Esben And The Witch – Warpath
Pictureplane – Goth Star (Brenmar Remix)
✝NO VIRGIN✝ – Cocaine and Ashes
Controlled Bleeding – Trawlers Song
White Ring – Feather (Story of Isaac Remix)

Listen to or download show @Alterati.com

Their latest material is flavored with electronic elements, with the soft symphonic backdrop Evanescence is often known for.  Make no mistake however, the thick guitars and Amy Lee’s vocal styole shine through as always.

As for the music video, it was sell-shot, the scenes behind the music creative.

See for yourself.

Still, this is not the end of today’s good news: As it has been too long since LACUNA COIL has played their native Italy the band want to give a very special treat to their Italian fans: an extensive tour throughout Italy! Not only will their Italian fans be able to enjoy some of the very first dates of their “Darkness Rising” tour, but also see the band on some more intimate club shows! After spending many months in the recording studio the band are dying to get on the road again and perform songs from “Dark Adrenaline” live:

21.10.2011 (I) Milan – Bloom
22.10.2011 (I) Ravenna – Rock Planet Club
24.10.2011 (I) Rome – Circolo Degli Artisti
25.10.2011 (I) Naples – Duel Beat
27.10.2011 (I) Florence – Viper
28.10.2011 (I) Modena – Vox
30.10.2011 (I) Treviso – New Age Club
31.10.2011 (I) Turin – Teatro Delle Serre
Tickets: http://www.ticketzone.it

After their UK run between November 2nd and 25th they will also stop in Holland and Belgium for two exclusive shows:
25.11.2011 (B) Vosselaar – Biebob (http://www.biebob.com/pages/index.php?f=concerts&i=512)
27.11.2011 (NL) Dordrecht – Bibelot (http://www.bibelot.net/content.aspx?id=155)

Stay tuned for more info about “Dark Adrenaline”!

LACUNA COIL online:

http://www.lacunacoil.it

http://www.myspace.com/lacunacoil

https://www.facebook.com/lacunacoil

http://www.emptyspiral.net

http://www.twitter.com/lacuna_coil

—
Fans von LACUNA COIL sollten den 14, Oktober blutrot in ihren Kalendern markieren, erscheint an dem Tag doch „Trip The Darkness”, die erste Single des kommenden Albums „Dark Adrenaline”!

Doch nicht genug der guten Neuigkeiten. Um sich für die geplanten Live-Aktivitäten warm zu spielen gibt es in Europa eine Reihe intimer Clubshows um die Veröffentlichung der Single. Dort werden bereits Songs des neuen Albums live vorgestellt. Die Band brennt geradezu darauf nach langen Monaten im Studio ihre „Darkness Rising“ Tour endlich auf die Bühnen zu bringen. Ihr Heimatland Italien darf dabei selbstverständlich nicht fehlen:

Black Fortress of Opium’s first album

Led by a charismatic multi-instrumentalist who goes by Ajda the Turkish Queen, the Boston noir rockers’ 2008 debut alternates between assaultive, noir anthems and more hypnotic but equally dark stuff. Martin Bisi’s raw yet rich production blends layer upon layer of reverb guitar in with Ajda’s mandolin, banjo, wind instruments and “field recordings,” creating an irresistible sonic tar pit. The gothic-titled House of Edward Devotion sets the stage for what’s to come with its eerie overtones, the melody only baring its fangs in the quietest moments, followed by the savage Black Rope Burns. The most stunning moment here is the seven-minute Ari (dedicated to the son Nico had with Alain Delon) with its ferocious sheets of distorted slide guitar and an earth-shattering plummet into the abyss at the end. There’s also the wistful Crack + Pool and its reprise; the Nina Nastasia-esque Twelve Gross; the jarringly percussive Your Past; the sad, sarcastic lament Model Café; the sultry, bluesy soul ballad From a Woman to a Man and the trance-inducing, ominous, nine-minute Dulcet TV. Most of this is streaming at the band’s myspace; AWOL from the sharelockers, it’s still available at cdbaby.

As recently as last year, Small Beast was THE place to be for dark, intelligent rock in New York. But then impresario and Botanica bandleader Paul Wallfisch absconded to Germany – which is probably just as well, because as he said at the time, he was being devoured by his own Beast. With a few exceptions – when Carol Lipnik or Vera Beren book the bands – the weekly concert series upstairs at the Delancey hasn’t been the same since. But Monday night was a return to the glory days. The assaultively noir Dead Sextons had originally been scheduled, but had to cancel. Due to a fortuitous encounter at one of the city’s elite studios (Beren is also an engineer of note), Rachelle Garniez stepped in and delivered mightily.

Beginning on accordion and moving to piano a bit later on and backed only by the Microscopic Septet’s Dave Hostra’s tersely nimble upright bass, she opened with a signature song of sorts, Quality Star. The version on her Luckyday album is lushly psychedelic, and so was this one, awash in brooding, sustained chords, Garniez taking her time with a few tellingly allusive scenes from a marriage gone horribly wrong. When she got to the outro, she didn’t cut loose – she just let the lyrics fuel the payoff, “You couldn’t pay me to go back there again.”

The rest of the show was a lot more upbeat, but no less intense. Garniez draws you in with her sense of humor and then lets her quiet but sabretoothed charisma do the rest. Once she’d gotten her stream of consciousness up and running, the wry, deadpan observations wouldn’t stop. One of the stage monitors was crackling: she insisted that Pop Rocks were coming out of it. A bit later, she launched into a long intro to one of the piano songs, a bitingly dismissive account of someone from a long-forgotten past trying to reconnect with her on Facebook. No matter how alone you may feel, she explained, there’s always someone online who wants to be your friend when you least want it.

She also romped through the subtle, offhand, ragtime-fueled menace of Kid in the Candy Store, a surprisingly klezmer-inflected minor-key number possibly titled Just Because You Should Doesn’t Mean You Can, and a hilariously deadpan waltz dedicated to Jean-Claude Van Damme (who, if the song is to be believed, is hawking antidepressants now). At the end, Garniez went way, way up the scale to aria heights – part of it was a just plain breathtaking display of vocal chops, but it was also irresistibly funny. One of the cognoscenti in the crowd remarked how touring as Karen Elson’s keyboardist has gotten Garniez to take her stage presence up a notch, but the truth is that she’s always had that game down cold, since her residency at Terra Blues about ten years ago, maybe since her days as a teenager fronting one of the first worldbeat bands, one that came thisclose to being famous – or at least signed to a big corporate label.

Vera Beren has the same kind of charisma, but unlike Garniez, she hits you head-on. With her gale-force contralto, she’s impossible to turn away from. Between songs, when Beren chatted nonchalantly with the audience, the contrast was striking: it was hard to imagine that such a dramatic, powerful voice could come out of someone so down-to-earth. Like Garniez, Beren draws on a fearless, irreverent punk rock wit. “What if god and, what’s his buddy’s name, Lucifer, were lovers?” she asked luridly. She offered a few answers, some anguished, others droll, with her opening number, The Devil, backed by a four-piece edition of her aptly titled Gothic Chamber Blues Ensemble. It set the stage for the rest of the show, a crescendoing anthem with roots in the High Romantic and swirling, funereal organ, Jon Diaz’ thick, sustained guitar lines shadowing it and occasionally moving in for the kill.

Blood of the Sun, a twisted waltz, gave Beren a launching pad for some effortless, double-octave vocal leaps. Baby shifted from an ominously atmospheric bass-driven intro to a methodically menacing Patti Smith-style spoken-word interlude, collapsing at the end into a volcanic metal mess. As usual, The Nod was a big hit with the crowd, with its slinky gypsy-punk groove, turn-on-a-ruble time changes and rumbling/searing twin guitar attack from Diaz and Mark Birkey, who throughout the show switched from piano, to trombone, to guitar and then back again.

With its foghorn trombone, Jay Cavanaugh’s booming bass chords and off-the-hinges guitar leads from Diaz, Priest Blues was like Blue Oyster Cult gone no wave up to a brief off-kilter punk-jazz interlude and then back again. The bitter, alienated Delirium, true to its title, changed tempos and meters endlessly – it was impossible for anyone but the band to keep up with it. Beren – who’d been busy pelting the audience with appeared to be a bottomless bagful of roses – finally went behind the keyboard and played organ on this one. Unlike a lot of musicians, she always sings best when she’s also playing. They closed with the fiery, ornate lament Is It Me, Diaz’ swoops and dives contrasting with the piano’s elegant astringencies.

The fun didn’t end there. Headliner Thomas Simon gets a lot of film work, so it’s no surprise that his shows have an enveloping, cinematic quality. This time he didn’t have electric djembe genius Alex Alexander to back him up, which meant that he had to spin with split-second precision through a small army of loops and effects (and a new set of Moog pedals that the musicians in the crowd were drooling over). Garniez pulls you in with her wit and charm, Beren with her powerful pipes; Simon does it with a swirling vortex of a million guitar, keyboard and percussion textures. More than just a one-man band, he was a one-man orchestra, shifting from slowly swaying, blacklit soundscapes aloft on endlessly oscillating sonic ebbtides, to several vocal tunes. One stomped along on a memorably savage series of distorted chords straight out of the Dead Boys or Sham 69 catalog. Other times, he’d introduce a hypnotic beat and then build it methodically, with layers of guitar that roared, clanged, howled and blended into each other, sometimes gracefully winding down to where the whole thing started. If there’s ever another Alien movie, this is the guy who should get to do the score.

It’s taken me quite a while to wrap my head around Morne’s Asylum.  I’ve been listening to it off and on for a little over a month now and I’m still not sure I fully comprehend the band’s intent.  But I’d like to think that I come a little closer every time I put the album on.  I recently found a quote by Victor Hugo that makes me think I might be on the right track.

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

Metal is often grotesque.  So many metal subgenres revel in ghoulish imagery, content to wallow in their own filth, espousing the virtues of death and decay.  But heavy metal can also be sublime. Nowhere is this more evident than on Asylum, a recording that can best be described as a search for the sublime through heaviness.  It’s the kind of album I want to get lost in, to totally immerse myself in its mesmerizing sonic realm.

It’s something about the guitar tone.  Milosz Gassan and Jeff Hayward somehow channel ghosts through their amplifiers, pushing air that crackles with spectral electricity.  The unearthly distortion comes in waves, crashing against the rhythms before crumbling into the aether ever so slowly, leaving phantom trails in its wake.  The effect is haunting.  I find myself thinking about it long after the album is finished, like faded memories of past lives.

As hypnotic as those guitars might be, they aren’t the only key component of Morne’s audial alchemy.  A layer of keyboards lingers just below the surface, an oh-so-subtle embellishment to Asylum‘s wraithlike atmosphere.  There’s more than a bit of the Peaceville Three in those keys, lending the music a stately, gothic quality.  Gassan’s hoarse, bellowing vocals recall both post metal and the crustier side of hardcore, adding a touch of grit and aggression to Morne’s otherwise heavy-yet-ethereal approach.  Simple, propulsive drumming keeps the rest of the band anchored to the Earth, while the bass guitar rumbles away like thunder muffled by thick windowpanes.

Ultimately, Asylum is like a flower, slowly coming into bloom to reveal untold beauty, only to wither away and die, its wilted petals scattered to the four winds. Over the course of the album’s hour long duration, Morne proves that heaviness can be a means for achieving an end other than the grotesque.  Whether or not they have truly achieved the sublime is up to the individual listener.

http://www.morneband.com/

NOISE COVERED WORSHIP
INCREASINGLY BIZARRE POLITICAL THREAT RITES
PROCESS PRODUCT PROPOSITION
DE LEGE MOTUS
CREATOR-GOVERNMENT-CREATOR
A CRAVEN SLAVE DESIGN
SACRED THOUGHT OBSTACLES
DISSOCIATIVE MODIFICATIONS
ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENA
GRAVE PECULIARITY RECEIVED
APPARITIONS OF ART
PROGRAMMERS BELOW SIGHTS OF THE OPERATIONAL SECRET
VAMPIRE WARS
A NON-EUCLIDEAN FUTURE

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Siouxsie & the Banshees – Join Hands

Over the course of their long career, Siouxsie & the Banshees have pushed the envelope with punk rock, goth, psychedelia and gamelan-inspired experimental sounds. This 1979 album, their second, is where Siouxsie Sioux crystallized her inimitable microtonal vocal style, along with her outraged-witness persona. Side one of this album follows a loosely thematic World War I theme, beginning with the acidic, atonal Poppy Day (sort of a punk version of the famous antiwar poem In Flanders Field). Guitarist John McKay hits his chords like he’s swinging a machete, through the scorching Regal Zone and Placebo Effect, while bassist Steven Severin’s minimalist chords fuel the fires in the savagely menacing Icon (which kicks off with the distant rumble of cannon fire). Premature Burial is as morbidly memorable as the band ever got; Playground Twist a vivid look at the cruelty children inflict on each other; Mother, a horror-movie music-box theme. The album ends with the eleven-minute, dadaist sacrilege of The Lord’s Prayer, originally done by Sid Vicious’ first band the Flowers of Romance. It’s most likely the only instance ever where anyone called Muhammad Ali a ”fucking dick” on vinyl. Here’s a random torrent.

I have some pretty strange thoughts while listening to metal.  I try to share as many of them as I can here at THKD.  I often wonder if anyone else has a thought process that is even remotely similar, and occasionally I’m validated via the comments section.  This time around however, I think I’ve come up with something that will throw at least 99.999% of you for a loop.  When I started digging deeply into long lost NWOBHM band Hell’s debut album Human Remains, there was one downright bizarre thought I just couldn’t shake.  I thought of Sir Laurence Olivier.

I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days. – From Shakespeare’s Richard III

Before you send the men in white coats to take me way, take a moment to compare the two videos above.  The first one is Hell’s video for the track “On Earth as it is in Hell” and the second is Olivier’s opening monologue from the 1955 film version of Shakespeare’s Richard III.  Wondering what a dead Shakespearean actor and a heavy metal band have in common?  The answer is simple. Drama.  Hell vocalist David Bower brings it to Human Remains in much the same way that Olivier brought it to the silver screen.  Not many metal vocalists possess a true flare for the dramatic that can be translated into a compelling performance.  King Diamond, Rob Halford, ’60s/’70s Sabbath-era Ozzy and a handful of others can do it.  Most can’t.

You see, Mr. Bower has something in common w/ Olivier (aside from being British, of course).  Bower is a classically trained actor and he brings that theatrical experience to Human Remains.  As far as I can tell from researching Hell, this is Bower’s first time fronting a metal band (stepping in for the dearly departed David Halliday).  To listen to his performance, you’d think he had been doing this for decades.  Like Olivier’s portrayal of Richard III‘s title character, Bower’s vocal performance on Human Remains is suitably dark and sinister, but also extremely varied and complex.  When was the last time you heard a metal singer bringing such a nuanced and refreshing approach to vocals?  Surprisingly, Bower’s lack of a traditional metal musician’s background is a huge advantage, as he brings a skill set and influences to the table that might as well be from another galaxy, imparting Hell w/ a unique vocal identity (it should be noted that I have yet to hear the nearly three decade old(!) Hell demo/EP material that Human Remains is based on, so I have no idea how Bower’s vocals compare to Halliday’s).

For selling my divinity a blackened angel I shall be – From Hell’s “Blasphemy and the Master”

By now some of you have probably watched the two videos and have come to the conclusion that both performances are a little on the over-the-top side.  This is because as both metal fans and consumers of popular culture, we are inundated with mediocre and downright bad vocalists and actors.  The fact that both Tim “Ripper” Owens and Ben Affleck have had successful careers speak volumes to this theory. We are so used to seeing lifeless actors limp through their films and hearing metal vocalists who bring absolutely nothing new to the table that we’ve become complacent, labeling anything extraordinary or even moderately outside the norm as OTT or “cheesy” as a result.  Some extraordinary metal vocalists, such as King Diamond, get a pass due to their longevity, but one can’t help but get the feeling that if King Diamond had debuted in 2011 instead of 1982, he would be mercilessly derided for his approach.  Back on topic, notice how Olivier effortlessly, alters the tone, cadence, volume and intensity of his voice throughout the Richard III monologue with a fluidity that is seldom seen in modern film.  This is not OTT, this is real acting, a commanding performance that holds you in its grip.  The same can be said of Bower’s vocals.  He employs a nearly identical technique, adjusting his approach to suit the musical/lyrical peaks and valleys of Human Remains, making each song a compelling narrative.  In other words, he sings his ass off and you had better pay attention.

It isn’t just Bower’s powerful presence that imbues Human Remains with an innate sense of the theatrical.  The compositions themselves (including a song based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which also speaks volumes about Hell’s bizarro connection to classical theatre)  are mini roller coaster rides, thanks to the dual-guitar pyrotechnics of original Hell guitarist Kev Bower and uber-producer Andy Sneap (who was also behind the boards for the album).  Their stellar six-string work can best be described as “NWOBHM on steroids”, thanks to Sneap’s muscular production scheme, but the riffage is tempered with a progressive edge that sets Hell apart from the trad metal pack.  There is also a subtle gothic/symphonic atmosphere that permeates Human Remains, thanks to the restrained, tasteful use of keyboards and eerie backing vocals (It’s interesting to note here that the majority of songs on Human Remains predate debut albums by the likes of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir by over a decade).  If we’re sticking with the film/play metaphor and Bower’s vocals are the “star” of Human Remains, then it is easy to think of the music as the “supporting cast”.  But make no mistake, the work of the rest of the band, as well as the quality of the songs themselves deserve equal billing, and it would be just as easy to compare Hell’s songwriting to Olivier’s mercurial performance.

If you’ve gotten this far through my rant, I’m guessing you’ve either come around to my way of thinking, or your concerns for my sanity have been fully justified. Obviously, I’m no theatre/film expert, so if any of you can expand upon or even refute my theories, I’d love to hear about it.  What I do know is that just as Shakespeare is the quintessential British dramatist, so too is there something distinctly British about Human Remains, a stately yet headbanging quality that only British bands seem to fully possess (see: Cathedral, early CoF, the “Peaceville Three”, Maiden, Priest, et al.).  You might call it “civilized frenzy”.  It’s part Shakespearean tragedy, part Hammer Films gothic horror and part Black Sabbath-styled heaviness, and it bloody well works.

Even if you are ready to have me committed, I think we can all agree that Human Remains is one of the year’s most compelling and above all fun metal debuts.  The fact that these guys were able to pull themselves out of the pits of obscurity after a twenty-five year layoff and release an album of this caliber is damn near mind-blowing.  It will be interesting to see where they go from here and whether or not they can branch out beyond those ancient demos.  Will they try to incorporate more “modern” influences?  Will Bower alter his vocal approach as he continues to gain experience?  Regardless of Hell’s next move, the bar has officially been set for traditional metal in 2011.  Welcome back.

http://www.hell-metal.com/

http://www.laurenceolivier.com/

I am definitely impressed with the standard of the music coming out of Germany as it seems to have more passion and life than music we get within the United Kingdom and United States.

This is ‘Ein letzts mal’ by Schock:

Please note: If want to see my second life journal then go to the Journal of a Spectral Traveller.

Rasputina – A Radical Recital

Since the 90s, cellist/songwriter Melora Creager has created an eerily surreal, twistedly lyrical, frequently hilarious, visionary body of work that ranks with any other songwriter or composer’s output during that time. Literally everything she’s ever made is worth owning. This particular edition of Rasputina, from 2005, features three cellos and drums (the drum guy sings a silly English folk song, When I Was a Young Girl, for comic relief from the relentless, dark intensity) plus Creager on vocals doing essentially a greatest hits-live set. It’s a strong if incomplete representation, with the searing chromatics of Saline the Salt Lake Queen; the ferociously sarcastic Howard Hughes; the ethereally sad Sign of the Zodiac and Watch TV; a blistering cover of the old swing tune If Your Kisses Can’t Hold the Man You Love; the amusing Mama Was an Opium Smoker; the entertainingly vicious anti-Rudy Guiliani broadside The Mayor; the pensive suicide anthem A Quitter, plus tongue-in-cheek chamber rock versions of Led Zep’s Rock & Roll and Barracuda by Heart. The cd is still available at the band’s site; here’s a random torrent.

A conversation with Louis DeWray On Behalf of NOSFERATU

When one speaks of bands representing capital G goth, no better example can be found than Nosferatu. With this, that and the other hyphenated fashion take on goth coming and going in the over two decades of the band’s existence they never compromised their fundamental dark and romantic style. Their fans remain loyal and in return Nosferatu are no less loyal to their audience and to the edifice of dark art they have built. That ‘Wonderland’, their latest album shot to the top spot of the dark wave charts on Amazon UK attests to the depth of this symbiotic relationship.

A week after a triumphant performance at WGT Nosferatu front man Louis DeWray was viciously assaulted, bringing up ugly memories of the attack on Sophie Lancaster. «As you may have read, I’ve had a somewhat difficult week…» is how he put it to me. With characteristic kindness and strength of character he shared his thoughts on Nosferatu’s long awaited return, the goth scene and hipsters among other things just a few days after the attack. Louts, thugs and reactionaries notwithstanding, Louis DeWray shows that Nosferatu and goths are here to stay. We pull together in support during hard times, just as we do under happier circumstances.The attack has made every member of Nosferatu all the more determined to play a great gig at DV8 (UK) and Castle Party (Poland) in a week’s time. “Luckily my spirit is stronger than my jaw!” Louis DeWray said to me. “It was a sad irony that at least one of us was wearing a ‘Sophie’ wristband when we were attacked…”

Read the interview at Dominion Magazine.

Iceblink Luck – Cocteau Twins (1990)
This Scottish trio disbanded in 1997 and members pursued solo projects or careers. Vocalist Elizabeth Fraser collaborated with other artists on occasional projects, but her solo career has been limited to a couple singles thus far.  Guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Simon Raymonde launched Bella Union, a successful independent record label. While focusing most of their effort on producing their label’s (& other) artists, Guthrie & Raymonde have also managed to release their own solo albums.

Closterkeller – koncert zespołu.
Wydarzenie miało miejsce 11 czerwca 2011 w klubie muzycznym Luka Łódź

Liderka grupy Anja Orthodox  po raz kolejny zaprezentowała bardzo dobrą formę koncertową , członkowie zespołu również sprostali zadaniu. Rock gotycki  z pogranicza metalu “zawładnął” klubem oraz przybyłą publicznościa bez reszty, mistycyzm dzwięku oraz formy zdecydowanie zrobił ogromne wrażenie na odbiorcach. Wszystko tego wieczora wskazywało na to iż w “spektaklu” gra główną rolę czołowy przedstawiciel nurtu tzw. “klimatycznego” rocka na polskiej scenie muzycznej. Zdjęcia koncertowe to ciekawa dziedzina fotografii eventowej.

 
skład zespołu:
Anja Orthodox, Michał Rollinger, Krzysztof Najman, Mariusz Kumala, Janusz Jastrzębowski

Closterkeller – Facebook site

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“Welcome, dear reader, to another edition of “Cheap methods to sell your music to the masses”! Today we’re covering the infinite opportunities of exploiting the male part of the metal and goth scene by using what obviously every man on this planet loves: boobs and the women attached to them! You’re going to learn about how exactly to form a band entirely of hot chicks performing some kind of unimportant soft-goth-pop-rock-thingy (really, who cares?) and market them to the millions of lonely metalteens who are not into burning crosses alongside Behemoth!”

This is an impressions of my thoughts when the five beautiful band members of Indica were looking at me lasciviously from the box of their album A Way Away. It couldn’t possibly be to me that this was a real, legitimate band with music as their main attraction. A cheap way by label Nuclear Blast to lure in the hundreds and thousands of desperate lonely hearts that the metal/gothic scene has to offer. It just had to be abusing man’s natural hunger for “dem boobies” to sell uninspired, girly goth rock out of the mind of a soulless music production android.

*beeep booooop beeeep music beeeeep ready*

And you know what? It worked. Goddammit!

Granted I watched the videos of Islands of Light and Precious Dark on Youpor-, er, Youtube, I went a bit biased into my first listening session because of the aforementioned assumption. I was proved phenomenally wrong, because Indica are nothing else than a really great band.

A Way Away is the first album of the quintet that has actually no lyrics written in the band member’s native language, Finnish. That’s right, they’re from Finland and according to wikipedia kind of a big deal over there. Founded in 2001, they launched their career back in 2004 with the platinum awarded Ikuinen virta (don’t even try asking me what that means) and have recorded several albums so far, A Way Away being a compilation of older songs rewritten in English. It was produced by no other than Tuomas Holopainen of ‘effin Nightwish fame, which in my honest opinion is one of the album’s few shortcomings. More on that later.

I don’t want to delve into their previous albums or the discussion wether or not the Finnish versions of the songs are or are not actually better. I can’t judge that because I don’t speak Finnish, also I don’t like judging lyrics at all other than saying that there are some lines in there that really got me somehow (as for example in “Straight and Arrow”). But what I can say is that A Way Away did really surprise me. Aside the unique voice of lead singer Johanna Salomaa (called “Jonsu”), who also writes the lyrics and music, it is really the rather exotic composition and unusual melodies within the overall very pop-orientated, simple structures that draw you in. There is a certain feeling of entering another world to the songs – not a story, though. It seems like the music was all about creating a mystical atmosphere close to the dark musical themes of nearly every other goth band out there, but adding a little twist by surprising the listener with unexpected elements, like a sudden modulation of the melodies and harmonics in for example “Precious Dark” or a very strange-sounding piano performance in “A Way Away”, alongside a subtle synth pad straight out of 80′s sci-fi-flicks. There are also pretty epic parts, like the fairy-tale “Children of Frost” on the one hand, but also a very song like “Scissor, Paper, Rock” on the other hand that is embracing its listeners with an extraordinarily uplifting chorus that won’t leave you even after the song is long over.

Get out of my heeeaaad!

Seriously, despite all prejudices, the more songs you hear the more you may begin to realize that Indica are not your ordinary typecast, industry-built girl band without any resemblance of a soul, but more legitimate musicians doing a damn good job. Examples of this craftmanship can be found in every one of the eleven songs, though not every piece of music on this album is great. The single “In Passing” for example is, in my opinion, unbearable to listen to and an almost painfully slow and boring song that seems solely written for cash. Another contestant in the race for the worst song of the album is “As if” with its very overblown and importunate orchestration. Some parts of it are just convoluted with hectic, randomly placed staccato of “the string section there and some whistles here and oh well, we could use another brass over here”. That’s what I was talking about when I mentioned the influence of Nightwish keyboarder and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen really does show in the production. At times, A Way Away in fact does sound like the last two albums by Nightwish, and that’s not a good thing in my opinion in terms of overall sound. Nightwish may be the archetype of recent symphonic metal bands, but also one of the cases in which I would say personally that too much orchestra is too much orchestra. This, of course, is a matter of taste, but if the performance of a band is hidden by the distractions of an overloaded orchestra pushing itself into the foreground, you could easily buy the soundtrack of a good movie instead.

There're a few bands who manage this balancing act. Just sayin', Mr. Holopainen...

Anyway, if you like both songs I have mentioned, more power to you, but to me these are just filler material at best and skips at most times. Also, they actually don’t get in way with the overall quality of the album. It is all in all a really great compilation of very well-thought, atmospheric songs surrounded by mist and magic, probably recorded under a full moon of partial awesomeness. There is just one more problem concerning the band: I don’t know if I like the band because the songs are in fact really, really great, or because I imagine the band members pillow-fighting giggly all the time when I listen to their songs. After all, I’m just a man and I don’t know how much this little fact might have influenced my judgement on the music.

So maybe I’m just in love.

The title track is a talking blues of sorts, a metaphorically-charged race with a hearse that wryly nicks the melody from Sympathy for the Devil, Molotov weaving back and forth across the yellow line in a duel with former Ninth House guitarist Bernard SanJuan. The angst-ridden Injury Home plays down the bluesiness of the Ninth House original in favor of atmospherics and a nonchalantly slashing Dundas piano solo. Peep Hole in the Wall was a standout track on Ninth House’s 2000 breakout album, Swim in the Silence; the version here is even creepier. Likewise, Cause You Want To takes an balmy wave pop song and makes a dirge out of it, courtesy of Susan Mitchell’s lush string arrangement. The most death-obsessed tracks here are the straight-up country numbers: 100 Years from Now, a voice from beyond the grave, and Sunday Morning Train, which looks grimly at the marble orchard as it passes by (the metaphors don’t stop coming here). Yet the closest thing to Johnny Cash here, a solo acoustic track, is also the most upbeat and optimistic.

With Xavier’s distantly echoey drums and mariachi trumpet, their version of Ghost Riders in the Sky imaginatively recasts it as an apprehensive border ballad. They also redo Merle Travis’ Sixteen Tons as a revenge anthem, with lyrics updated for the new Great Depression, a theme they revisit with the bitter, tango-flavored Hills of Decline. The two most visceral tracks here both feature Randi Russo on vocals: a majestically orchestrated, vertigo-inducing version of Death Song (another Ninth House number) that chillingly pairs off her haunting stoicism against Sinnis’ morbid croon, and the David Lynch-style noir pop duet To Join the Departed in Their Dream. On her new album Fragile Animal, Russo sings with tremendous nuance; her vocals here are nothing short of exquisite.

The album ends with an uncharacteristically lighthearted singalong (lighthearted by comparison to everything else here, anyway), I’ll Have Another Drink of Whiskey, ‘Cause Death Is No So Far Away. A shout-out to Shane MacGowan, it’s a bittersweet enticement to seize the moment while it’s still here, even if that’s only to drink to forget how soon that moment will be gone. It’s also the funniest song Sinnis has ever written: if you can get through the turnaround into the chorus without at least cracking a smile, either you have no sense of humor, or you don’t like to drink. Count this among the increasingly crowded field at the top of our picks for best album of 2011.

Her voice is as inimitable as always: stately and distantly wary, the perfect vehicle for the casual menace and macabre in her richly imagistic narratives. She doesn’t waste words, or notes, or ideas, leaving a lot open to interpretation as she always does, which is her strongest suit. Her songs draw you in, make you wonder what happened to the bear in his lair (track one, nimbly fingerpicked acoustic guitar mingling with reverb-drenched electric guitar echoes and a hypnotic whoosh of cymbals), or who the hell Marie and Justin are in the inscrutably bitter Mr. John Lee Revisited, and why he should care that Marie has a daughter now in another city and Justin is somewhere else.

The centerpiece here is the strikingly ornate, lush anthem Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning, countrypolitan as seen through the prism of ELO, maybe. “When I return promise I will hold you in my palm…sing this song and keep you like a bomb,” Nadler promises. Cali doesn’t do it for her, New York either – and then she she realizes she’s made a mistake. Nadler reprises that artsy country sound even more powerfully a bit later on, with the sad ballad In a Magazine, a requiem of sorts for a fallen idol lowlit with what sounds like an Omnichord synthesizer. The darkest song here is Wind Up Doll, an eerily metaphorical folk-rock shuffle about a war widow – or maybe her ghost. Puppet Master, which precedes it, is much the same musically and considerably more surreal, the girl/puppet wishing fervently for the guy who pulled her strings to return.

The most ethereal of the tracks is Wedding, a 6/8 country song that’s more of a wake than a celebration. Driven by terse gospel piano and soaring steel guitar, the most country-flavored song here is The Sun Always Reminds Me of You, its elegaic lyric contrasting with the warmly bucolic arrangement. Little King is a metaphorically-charged gem, chronicling what seems to be the would-be seduction of a young tyrant. The album closes with its most haunting track, Daisy Where Did You Go. “With my phantom limb and my eerie hymns, there are two of us here I know,” Nadler intones, a ghost in search of another who might have made it to a place somewhat better than limbo. You’ll see this one high up on our best albums of the year list in December. Marissa Nadler plays the Mercury on July 27.