A while back I listed some of the newer goth type bands that I found to be interesting. There are so many good bands coming out with excellent music right now that this second list really needed to be made. This time I am also including electronic/industrial bands. They may not be strictly goth but they are definitely goth adjacent. These bands are not in any particular order. All links will take you to the relevant Bandcamp page. Bandcamp Friday is on March the 5th, a day in which 100% of the sale of music and merchandise goes to the bands.
Jay Draper And The Subterraneans This is a hybrid band that contains elements of goth rock, darkwave and post-punk. I love the the soaring vocals, they are very distinctive.
The Last Of Us They play very heavy traditional goth rock, but with a feel of urgency. Keyboards are artfully added for atmosphere. Reminds me of Fields Of The Nephilim crossed with early Danzig because their music has a slightly sinister feel to it.
Corlyx Post-punk meets darkwave. This is a hybrid band that makes some very danceable tunes.
Stoneburner Steven Archer’s solo project that is at once industrial and electronic with other bits tossed together to make for some very interesting sounding music.
Dead Cool They don’t have a lot of music out yet, but what they have put out so far I really enjoy! A post-punk and darkwave hybrid band.
Rosegarden Funeral Party This is a post-punk band with some darkwave thrown in, surrounded by one of the most distinctive female voices out of all of the modern genre bands. The lyrics sound very personal in nature and give the music a deeper meaning.
S Y Z Y G Y X Mainly an electronic and darkwave band. Very driving beats and interesting vocals.
I Ya Toyah This is a one woman band that is fiercely industrial and electronic. Beautiful vocals paired with an urgency and great lyrics.
The Long Losts Very spooky sounding deathrock mixed with some touches of metal. The lyrics are very haunting!
Abu Nein Darkwave and electronic music with a flourish of post punk. Nice vocals and driving beat.
I don’t normally do music reviews, mainly because it’s kind of daunting since there is so much good music being made right now. However, I have decided that I could make it less difficult if I only review albums that I really connect with on a deeper level.
For those of you who don’t know who these two musicians are here is a rundown. They have been friends since childhood and were briefly in a band called Amuse before they set out on their own paths. David Long used to be in the Irish 80’s post-punk band Into Paradise, and Shane O’Neill used to be in the Irish 80’s post-punk band Blue In Heaven. They have collaborated before on the album Supernaught. I can honestly say that Shane is one of the most down to earth musicians I have ever had contact with, and I think its cool as hell that the both of them are still actively making music instead of only relying on their past output. Moving forward instead of living in the past.
When I first listened to this it struck me as sounding ‘dreamy’. Meaning that the guitar, bass and keyboards moved here and there in the songs in a smooth motion instead of in jagged breaks. It instantly reminds me of the more rhythmic albums by Lycia which can only be a good thing. The guitar in the songs tends to have some reverb while the bass is more straight forward and linear. It’s a nice contrast that really works well and it helps bring everything together. Musically this album fits into an indie box, but not strictly as there are definitely some touches of post-punk and even a little bit of ethereal goth thrown in for good measure.
The lyrics on this album are gorgeous. I’ve always been attracted to bands whose lyrics are on a level playing field with their instrumentation, and this album is a good example of that. My favourite lines have to be from the song Far From Home.
You said I was strong, and I would never break It’s not that easy, it’s not a choice that you make That day when the trucks arrived, I knew I had to leave Never saw what life could be and it brought me to my knees Makes me scared for what’s coming Makes me scared for what’s comingnow
I burnt your name on my skin to remind me Walk the roads far from home far behind me Do you still remember me? I’m not sure if i remember you I have got, nothing that I need
Moll & Zeis is available right now on Bandcamp. As an added bonus the lyrics are also on there, which I wish more bands would do.
Anybody who knows me on social media knows that I really love A Flock Of Seagulls. I couldn’t buy their music when it originally came out because I was poor so I have been righting that wrong over the last few years by collecting their vinyl. With all of that said I really feel that A Flock Of Seagulls were way ahead of their time, both stylistically and musically. Especially with their obvious song and video homages to the sci-fi genre.
Their video featured above, (It’s Not Me)Talking, is perhaps one of the most original music videos to come out of the 80’s. A group of scientists detect a UFO coming in to land so they call the military. When the ship lands Mike Score, the singer of the band, comes out of the spaceship resplendent in his silver jumpsuit and coiffed hair. It’s like watching a very cool 1950’s black and white sci-fi film, which happens to be one of my favourite genres. On top of all of this the song is very cool, and doesn’t actually sound dated compared to a lot of the bands from around the same time.
Wishing (I Had A Photograph Of You) is a video that either takes place on a space station or spaceship. Mike Score walks around singing during much of it, looking very lonely and pensive. Of course he does, because if you were thousands of miles away from your significant other you would feel the same way. There is a scene in which he tries to create the image of a woman on a computer and a real photo pops out of the printer. So, you also get the added bonus of seeing a technology that has actually been realized. Neat!
In my opinion I Ran is one of their more ‘simple’ sci-fi themed videos. You’ve got lots of mirrors, reflective material and two women who look like they are dressed in literal black garbage bags walking around with their arms outstretched as if they are going to attack Mike Score. They are also wearing some very dramatic eye makeup which is done, I guess, to make them appear otherworldly. This was during a time in which dramatic makeup was seen as ‘other’ and not as common as it is these days. All of this actually makes sense when you realise that the song itself is about trying to run away from an alien invasion.
This video is the most simple out of the bunch. The title alone, Space Age Love Song, evokes a sort of wistful thinking as to falling in love in a sci-fi themed future. They are just performing on a stage with fog, lights, and what looks like an actual space rocket in the background. It’s one of their better songs, so the lyrics and music really set the tone for the video.
This one is definitely the strangest of the bunch. You have the band in a spaceship playing their instruments while dressed in silver clothes, as two spacemen bring a woman to some sort of tilted table that she proceeds to go to sleep on. Then there are clips of a small monkey making evil looking faces, who in the end is being held by this green alien figure that looks like one of those Easter Island statues. I’m not sure what I am supposed to think after watching this. Are space monkeys evil? Do green space aliens come from Easter Island? Are bands required to wear silver coloured costumes when they go into space? Yes, it’s a bit strange but I feel that is what makes it cool. It gives you the latitude to interpret it as you please.
If you haven’t heard by now John Lydon, of The Sex Pistols and PiL, has openly announced that he is voting for Trump. Before this I had thought that he wore that one Trump shirt months ago to really piss people off. However he has fully doubled down on his support for the racist pig. This being the case I have decided to cut all ties with him.
You’ve got to understand that boycotting his music really pains me a lot because both the Sex Pistols and PiL were among the first weirdo bands that I listened to in the 1980’s. I literally deleted all of his associated music off of my computer yesterday and I got very close to tears because ultimately I feel betrayed by Lydon. The man who made the song World Destruction with Afrika Bambaataa is not the same man who is supporting an openly racist conman.
From what I have read, and understood, one of the reasons why he is supporting Trump is because he identifies with him in terms of being accused of being a racist. Apparently, after a Sex Pistols appearance in 2008 at a festival, some racist words were said backstage by the Pistols road-crew towards the singer of the band Bloc Party. This was witnessed by and confirmed by other members of several bands. On top of that Lydon also said nasty things to the guy. I had no clue about any of this until a few days ago and it totally blows my mind that Lydon refutes all of this and has the nerve to say that he doesn’t support racism even though he is willing to support Trump who is openly racist.
Lydon is actually still claiming that he is working class even though he owns two homes in the US and one in the UK. Sorry John, but working class people can’t even afford to buy one home these days let alone three in two different countries. I think he has gotten to the point in his life that he is just regurgitating the crap that he said over thirty years ago that doesn’t apply to him at all these days. Yes, his wife Nora is slowly dying from Alzheimers and that’s sad, BUT that doesn’t give him an excuse to act like a damn moron and go against things that he used to fight for.
He also claims that people shouldn’t get stuck in a set of beliefs forever. So, he is justifying his support for a racist prick by saying that it’s good for people to change their minds. Guess what John? It is never good to change your mind about the act of racism because in doing so you yourself become a racist. Racism is bad and is never something that should be condoned or excused. Don’t want to be called a racist prick? Then don’t support one. The really bad part about all of this is that his (step)grandchilden are of mixed race. I wonder how they feel about him supporting Trump?
Lydon is now dead to me and I will never listen to his music again. Fuck you Johnny!
No hideous Bono sunglasses or Edge beanies, so it must be early U2.
I have a confession to make. Back until about April of 1990 I was a huge U2 fan. It was around that time that I finally couldn’t take Bono’s bullshit any longer and I totally stopped listening to them. I felt so betrayed by their obvious ‘sell out’ tactics that it took me almost thirty years to listen to their older albums again.
When I talk about early U2 I’m talking about their work up to the Wide Awake In America EP which was released in 1985. So anything past that I just flat out refuse to listen to. When Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum both came out I initially enjoyed them, but something about them didn’t sit right with me at the time. I think it had to do with two main things; trendies who previously would make fun of me all of a sudden liked them and Bono’s ego started to take over the music of the band.
I started getting heavily into U2 around late 85/early 86. It was such a long time ago that I quite honestly can’t remember the exact year. I remember liking New Year’s Day a whole lot when I would watch MTV as a young teen, so I always knew they existed before I started really getting them. One of the things that drew me to them was the fact that they were involved with Amnesty International and seemed to give a damn about social issues. By 1990 all of that was gone, and the band members starting cheating on the wives, dating supermodels and just basically behaved as if their shit didn’t stink. They became a stereotypical example of a band, instead of rising above that kind of shit like they used to.
I realise that bands sometimes majorly change their sound, but the jump that U2 did was a step too far for me. Rather than the original dark post punk sound that they had going on all of their early 80’s albums they basically became a pop band playing really boring music. I know I’m not the only one who felt this way at the time because there were even articles all about how they lost a lot of their original fan base by the time they made Rattle And Hum.
What’s funny is that all of this really pisses off all of the current U2 fans who enjoy their newer albums. The band basically has two separate groups of fans; people who were around in the 80’s who love only their earlier output, and those who heavily support their newer incarnation. I’ve noticed on a lot of U2 album lists that many of the newer fans will list October as the worst U2 album. It’s actually my favorite U2 album because it is very dark and has a genuine heavy post-punk vibe to it. Actually, I think their earlier work all the way to The Unforgettable Fire are solidly post-punk albums that sound a whole lot more original that all of the wannabe post-punk bands around right now.
Did I get a lot of shit for liking them? I did get some flack from the other weirdos in my area, but U2 were actually considered to be an ‘alternative’ band at the time and not mainstream. They were only considered mainstream once Joshua Tree came out. I think some of the songs off of that album are ‘okay’ but they felt very pallid compared to their earlier songs. I actually made a DIY U2 themed denim jacket in high school, and even drew my own U2 back patch. That was my first ever DIY project and I even had some people ask me in high school if I could make the same back patch for them to use. I appreciated that people asked me but I didn’t want anybody having the same design as I had so I turned them down.
During this time U2 were definitely not the only band I listened to. I was also into OMD, Specimen, The Dead Kennedys, The Sex Pistols, 7 Seconds, Love & Rockets, Public Image Limited, Jesus And Mary Chain, etc…. I even went to see The Cure n 87 wearing that denim jacket and nobody gave me shit for it. I think it was more acceptable back then to be into wildly different sounding bands than it is today. These days youngsters want to be put in boxes without any outside influences, which I think is a damn shame. I saw U2 perform live twice in 87, and I’m grateful that I at least got to see them play a lot of their older songs, something which they didn’t do much of after that.
About a year ago I found myself going onto YouTube and listening to early U2. It brought back so many memories that I bought all of their CDs up to The Unforgettable Fire. I didn’t feel anger any longer because I came to the realization that it is perfectly alright to like only one era of a band that has been around for decades. I still own all of their 80’s single 45’s because they are in one of my mom’s closets, and I have searched for and bought some of their rarer earlier vinyl such as the War picture disc. The funny thing is that they are cheaper now than they were in the 80’s.
Does U2 suck now? Of course they do, but I love their earlier albums. I think, in some way, this would piss Bono off and that makes me happy.
