Proud goth, ex DJ and music reviewer

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Washington DC is the town where you find gothic rock duo, Amulet. They released their debut album, The House Of Black And White in 2021 and it has a whopping sixteen tracks on it. Talk about getting more bang for your buck. Stephanie Stryker and MJ Phoenix have created an album full of quintessential inky gloom and a southern gothic feel that will warm the cockles of many a darkling’s black little heart. They remind me a lot of the wonderful Concrete Blonde with that heavy bass and ringing guitar, along with the laconic and unhurried drawl of the vocals, giving it the feel of a night out with Anne Rice’s vampires, in New Orleans, with the heady aroma of wisteria in the air. They have started to also collaborate with other acts and as a result we also have the amazing electronic remix of “Falling Down” by unitcode:machine which should be on high rotation on dance floors and sound systems. So we decided to open up a vein and ask Amulet a few questions which they kindly did between gigs.

Welcome Amulet to the darkside of Onyx.

Amulet is a fairly new project. How did it all come together?

MJ Phoenix: In October 2019, we wrapped a rehearsal with our old band that played a repertoire cover songs. I said I wanted to write a concept album of original music. So three of us from that group began to write songs. As we went through the writing and producing process, Stephanie and I felt it would be better to form our own group, independent of our third member, due to diverging musical styles. He agreed and Amulet was formed!

Stephanie Stryker: Most people say things and don’t do it, but a few months later during lockdown, tracks started appearing in my email from MJ. We spent over a year writing while he lived in Washington, DC and I lived Dallas, TX. Now I’ve returned to the DC area and we have formed a live band!

Are you both from a goth rock background with other previous bands?

SS: Nope, our previous band was a classic rock cover band, and MJ’s bands before that were a diverse mix between funk and rock jam bands. I am a goth/industrial head though, so it makes me very happy to make music that I like to listen to also!

Your debut album House of Black + White has a Southern blues style to it at times, that musically reminds me a lot of Concrete Blonde while at other times there is a post-punk vibe with the bass and percussion. What was the process in creating the album?

MJ: Almost all the tracks started with bass parts. When I write, I let the instrument feel its way to where it wants to go for that song. I also almost always start with bass lines written in minor keys. Once the bass line reveals itself, I play around with guitar parts to compliment. From there, I pass to Steph for vocals, sometimes with melodies and sometimes not. While I wrote most of the guitar parts on the album, many of the final guitar recordings were played by Stephanie’s brother John Taylor, a professional guitarist from Nashville, TN. Keys were added later by both John and I to round out the sound.

SS: This is the first recorded music I’ve done so the learning curve was steep! As MJ mentioned, he would mostly send me close-to-finished drafts and I would record demos for vocals in Logic. I would often write or contribute to the vocal melodies. Two of the songs on the album are written by me, Last Ditch and Witchfinder. With Last Ditch, I sang the whole thing a cappella and handed to MJ for music. With Witchfinder, I produced a musical skeleton along with lyrics and vocals which we both developed the final track from there. After our drafts were done, we hit the studio for many hours of vocal recording, mixing, and mastering!

Did it feel a little ambitious releasing a 16 track album as your debut?

MJ: We actually had trouble stopping. We have many more tracks that could have been made but we had to stop somewhere. Clear Blue Sky was the last track. I wrote it quickly and it made itself very clear it needed to live on this album.

SS: As someone who was a teen in the 1990s, I fully expect albums to have at least 12 tracks (usually closer to 15) in order for me to consider it a full album. My favorite album of all time is Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, which is a double album. So, I really wanted to give people their money’s worth. These days, an album on Bandcamp is only $7 USD, so for 16 tracks, that’s a damn good deal I’d say! We actually have more tracks that could have made it on there, but we just needed to put a cap on it at some point.

Your music seems to touch some very personal subjects, so are you writing from experience or as an observer?

SS: MJ’s been dumped a lot of times, ha! I wrote my songs on this album from an observer’s perspective. This was my first foray into writing, so I didn’t dive as deep into my personal issues. Writing more and working with MJ has taught me a lot about using music to express that side of my life, as well. Expect more sad, emotional tracks from me in the future!

MJ: While there is plenty of my own life in the album topics, it is also an expression of general dissatisfaction and a comment on those experiences that most people go through. Though mainly about relationships, there are also a few tracks about dissatisfaction with the modern political climate, which again, I think most people can relate to.

You had other musicians play on the album with you and Amulet has been playing live shows, so do you play with backing tapes or do you have a live band to play with you?

SS: We have a six-person live band now! They are not the same folks who played session work on our album, but local musicians from the Washington, DC area. We have MJ on bass, myself on lead vocal, Damian Himeros on lead guitar, Bob Carr on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Alison Freyja on keyboard and backing vocals, and Thomas Grothe on drums.

How did you find trying to release an album during the pandemic and how has it changed the way you do business?

MJ: Not much to compare it to since this is our first album. Since so many people were stuck at home, there is probably more competition than there was. We’ve also had to take a little more time to go live due to the pandemic, but we’ve used that time to build the live band. The real challenge is breaking through the mass of music and other information on the internet and just getting the album into people’s ears.

Our formative music choices often colour our tastes, so in that vein, what acts did you listen to when you were younger?

MJ: I grew up in Liverpool, UK in the 1970s and 80s so I was greatly influenced of the counterculture music of the time. Sex Pistols, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Led Zepplin, Gary Numan, punk, new wave, reggae, and funk (even played in a funk band).

SS: I was a suburban 90s mall goth, so I loved the dark alternative giants of the time: Nine Inch Nails, Manson, Skinny Puppy, Stabbing Westward, etc. Graduating high school, I fell in love with David Bowie, Sisters of Mercy, and The Cure, as well as EBM and industrial dance acts like VNV Nation, Apop, Icon of Coil, Covenant, etc.

Whom do you listen to now?

MJ: Amulet! I’m usually writing in my head.

SS: I still do have my old favorites on rotation. When I’m not listening to our music, it’s usually some harsh EBM or aggrotech acts like Alien Vampires, Suicide Commando, Nachtmar, etc. I am really obsessed with Faderhead’s new release Years of the Serpent right now.

What is in the future for Amulet?

MJ: A lot in store! We are building out our live show and beginning to gig regionally in our area. We are also working on two new album concepts: A sequencer and synth-based electronic direction for one (this may turn into a side project) and a more Amulet-style rock album. And who knows, we might write another dark lounge track (yes we did that! Secrets + Lies on Bandcamp). We are also currently working on a remix album for House of Black + White with other collaborators (so far, we are working with unitcode:machine, Red This Ever, and Grendel).

SS: All that, but we are also visual artists! We have several music videos coming up and we will be filming more soon. We also have a catalog of art photography that we’d like to showcase and make available to our fans. I am a graphic designer by day and have a degree in fashion design, so there are a lot of ways I can see expanding Amulet into a wide-reaching artistic endeavor beyond just music.

Check us out on Instagram and Facebook (@amulettheband), we are constantly posting our photography and often I will write poetry as well. Our website is amuletheband.com, we’d love to have you join our mailing list and follow us for updates! Thanks so much for reaching out to us.

Thank you for the music and we hope to hear more music from you soon!

https://amulettheband.bandcamp.com/

Amulet | Facebook

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Just when you thought is was safe to get back into mother nature, a single is carelessly discarded by the lads in DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS and low it was called “Drop Brick“. It was released in January, on the 14th of 2022, ahead of the soon to be unleashed Industry album. I, your humble reviewer decided to cheekily nick this description from their bio…..

Formed around the creative axis of Howard Gardner (Non-Bio, Pillars Of Golden Misery), Max Rael (History Of Guns, Spucktute, Raelism), and Daniel Vincent (The Resonance Association), DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS create music that is dark in outlook and electronic in nature.

Not going to lie, the keys from the beginning bring forth memories of Tubular Bells, but the vocals of Max Rael save us. For the initiated, Rael very well could be channeling Coil’s John Balance, it is truly uncanny and very lucky that Coil is a band that the group are very much into. On much more serious note “Drop Brick” is empathising with a monster. The thoughts that they might go through, pain, loss, anger, loneliness and the hunger to have to what is kept from them. In the end there is no end and only the exhaustion of reality. The synths peal over and over again, cementing the ground hog perception and you feel the heaviness of wanting to pass away.

The more murky sounding “I Can Stop The Noise” is kind of the b-side, filled with a story told in a matter of fact way about a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, whom hates her husband and plans something diabolical. The electronics are so low, you strain to hear them as they dwindle to a slowing heartbeat.

There are no less than four remixes of “Drop Brick” and one deconstructed mix which I think I can safely say where done by all the band mates. The Pillars Of Golden Misery is is all prickly and angry while the Safety Deposit Box version feels like a much more lighter version with it’s cute electronics, that is until the sped up vocals join in like that mantra. The Raelism remix is like a lads night down the pub with the boys that gets thrown into the Twilight Zone. Talking about the weird and wonderful is The DOMH Deconstructed version, giving you Twin Peaks vibes with the vocals running backwards, the swell of electronics in the background that just seem out of reach yet full of promise to swallow you in the noise. The Non-Bio remix is full of the noise and cacophony of buzzing electronics trying to crawl under your skin, as they are pushed to the limit and we wouldn’t expect anything less.

The guys have also included the original demo version of the song which was originally named “Halt Program“. It is a far more keyboard friendly version, the bare bones so to speak, without the vocals but it is still a very compelling piece of music and it is interesting to see how it developed into “Drop Brick”. DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS manage to find the quirk in things and bring them to the fore. The ability to make you listen to what is almost most there or the subtle yet sudden change in direction that takes on a completely different journey. Call it experimental post-industrial or dark electro-ambient or whatever but in the end it is about that journey you take with them and in that process, the visions they can bestow.

https://decommissionedforests.bandcamp.com/album/drop-brick-2

Decommissioned Forests | Facebook

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Dima Ilyin is one of the people trying to make industrial great again. You may have heard this Russian’s name connected to the project Nova State Machine with Australian Craig Saunders (NOVAkILL) however his original solo act, that has been around since 2009, ULTIMATE SOLDIER, dropped a new album in January of 2022 called Konstruktor (and you don’t get much more industrial sounding than that!)..

The album’s title is also the first song and you will be hit by the waves of static and the female over-voice saying “Konstruktor“. The fusion of bleeps with rhythm that brings you to the angry vocals as the Konsruktor (Ilyin), konstrukts and creates konstruktion. “Control” is success or is it? From the electronic whirs comes the synths and Ilyin’s vocals, stealthily subverting you. A comfortable pace that never lets up nor ever feels out of control…..

The beginning of “Power” almost feels overwhelming in its verbosity. A cyber techno sound with a big ground swell on an industrial level. The more laid back “Lies” is a far more insidious affair as it crawls into your ears, unlike the “Selfdestruction” which is more like a drill to the head with those sharp beats. It is still bristling with angst but “U Gonna Die” is a smooth piece with those synths breaking through like futuristic sunshine.

There is a retro feel to the track “Reload“, as if the sparkling synths had come from the early 80s but the vocals growl over the top to remind you that not is all as it seems in the cyber world. It was Edward Teller who created the hydrogen bomb, who also wished to create a “10 000 Megaton” nuclear bomb which would have yielded 166 666 times more explosive power than the one dropped on Hiroshima. The track is a slightly trap influenced bleak soundscape instrumental, that travels outwards from point zero.

Love from the beginning “Cold Connected” as it is so clean and bright next to the fuzz and vocals. The techno waves within it are easy on the ears and extend to the primal. The space like “Final Mission” is a thing of beauty. Synths layer like falling stars in this bridging, short instrumental before we hit the final track, “Futuresoldier“. This is a great dance track from the ULTIMATE SOLDIER as it races ahead with no fear and no surrender to embrace the oncoming apocalyptic world order.

“Reload” and “Power” were released together, middle of last year as a remix package, which I highly suggest you check out as well. The track “Selfdestruction” reminds me a little of HOSTILE ARCHITECT and I started imagining the whole ULTIMATE SOLDIER vs HOSTILE ARCHITECT de-Konstruktor style…. I can dream! Konstruktor is gritty and grating, yet the keyboards also give this album that beautiful polish and make it fly. A mixture of cyber-industrial with the futuristic synth and techno to offset it, creating the nightmarish new world order.

Ultimate Soldier (bandcamp.com)

Ultimate Soldier | Facebook

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New Zealand seems a long way from anywhere and maybe this is why they have developed their own rich musical tapestry. Singer Justine Ó Gadhra-Sharp, around 20 years ago, went into a recording studio in Auckland, with collaborator Iva Treskon, laid down some tracks and there they remained until another musicians, Bryan Tabuteau and Josh Wood bringing them back to attention. The tracks were given a new lease of life and the EP called Sidhe, the Gaelic pronunciation ‘Shee‘, was created with Wood (The Mercy Cage) in the engineering/production seat.

The opening track is “Charmer“, about that person that has a silver tongue and worms their way into your affections but never should have. Some songs just make your jaw drop at the pure elegance of the music and the vocals. “Stanley’s Only Hope” is one of those songs. A duet between Ó Gadhra-Sharp and Michel Rowland (Disjecta Membra) done in the broken carnival style I like to think Nick Cave pioneered. The vocals fence with each other before joining in a beautiful spiral, Rowland with his deep and smooth baritone complimenting Ó Gadhra-Sharp.

“Red Room” is the single and deservedly so. An electronic turn of the aloof, sexual kind with a catchy chorus that will stick with you for quite a while. There is a whirlwind of guitar and piano in “Hypnosis“, as if there is something unstable going on in her racing mind. Completely on a different plane is the mellow “Walking On Air“, a minimalist piece that wanders it’s own path before the last track, a remix version of “Red Room“. The Mercy Cage are another New Zealand group who give this mix a cyber-industrial tickle.

Yes, my favourite is “Stanley’s Only Hope” because of the finesse of the vocals and the drama involved and “Red Room” will be a crowd pleaser. Her vocals are just smokey seduction and with the help of other members of the New Zealand gothic and industrial community, Ó Gadhra-Sharp has brought out an eclectic, dark electronica and cabaret style offering in Sidhe.

https://justinesidhe.bandcamp.com/releases

Justine Ó Gadhra-Sharp | Facebook

Disjecta Membra | Facebook

The Mercy Cage | Facebook

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I was warned that this was coming by Craig Saunders, one half of Sydney’s NOVAkILL. What you may ask? Why the EP Therapy I: Aversion. Saunders with Warren Bones have been doing their post-punk inspired, synth thing since around 2003 with their first album, Hard Tech For A Hard World. Don’t expect anything new on this four track EP but rather there are two re-recordings of older NOVAkILL songs and two covers.

Still back and get your socks knocked off with the reworked “Deliverance 2022“. Those synths are just magical and deliciously meaty. Bones’ vocals rip into you and you happily bounce away to the waves of beats and synths. If you are old enough to remember. Simple Minds had released quite a few albums before people discovered “Don’t You Forget About Me“. NOVAkILL cover the wonderful “I Travel“. They take this little gem and give it teeth. A dark and brooding maelstrom of post-punk synth which is still every bit relevant today.

The baleful air of the beginning of “SHOkNOVA” culminates into a buzz of noise, beats and glorious keyboards. Hell yes we need to be set free with the powering rhythms of “SHOkNOVA“. The last track is a cover of a track that is close to my heart. The luminous “Underpass” that was originally written and performed by John Foxx, has been taken to hand and the crux of the song is very much present in those sparkling synth lines but Bones has not tried to emulate Foxx but rather stayed true to his vocals, giving this a far more gritty sound along with more modern electronics. I like this version very much.

Okay, my suggestion is to go to Bandcamp and download this. It is name your price and it is well worth paying a little something for. It will make you want to dance and wonder at how brilliantly skilled these guys are at what they do. It will be nostalgic for some hearing the new versions of NOVAkILL songs or for others, the 80s classics. Saunders has this magic touch where everything becomes just so damn tasty. With Therapy I: Aversion under their belts, let us see what next gets the treatment.

https://novakill.bandcamp.com/album/therapy-i-aversion-ep

𝙉𝙊𝙑𝘼𝙠𝙄𝙇𝙇 | Facebook

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Meajin is the indigenous name for the area where the city of Brisbane is found. It is also the city that you can find the female trio, Sacred Hearts. June Gray, Josie Davison, and Bella Molloy dropped their second single “Vices” on January the 10th, 2022. Their first single was well received by the discerning alternative public. It did so well, “Glamour Girls” made radio station, 4ZZZ’s Hot 100 for last year, as voted for by listeners, which they didn’t expect.

“Vices” is fairly obviously about addiction, the lies people tell to hide it and the effective loss others feel. The song is slow, like a case of seeing through intoxicated eyes as everything dwindles. The bass guitar is the star in this, with the deep sonorous plucking, backed up by the light guitar work around it. The vocals, a beautiful lament calling out, an ethereal dark angel.

Dark and moody with a bit of echo and reverb to set the scene and it would make a depressed Robert Smith proud. It is a gloomy gothic affair, which for some of us, is something we have experienced first hand, the loss of others to their “Vices“. Though it is a sad topic, the music is beautiful and if these ladies are the future of goth…. then we are in good hands.

https://sacredhearts.bandcamp.com/track/vices

Sacred Hearts | Facebook

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Greek duo, Mechanimal, are celebrating 10 years together and releasing albums. So it is fitting to release a best of collection. This best of however is made up of songs that were picked by other artists and then they have remixed them. The compilation is called Living With Animal Ghosts and was released on Inner Ear Records on January the 14th, 2022.

If you are a fan of Mechanimal already, you will enjoy this look back and re-interpretation of past works. There is also pretty much a style to suit everyone. The Dans Mon Salon remix of “In Somber Account“, with it’s trap influenced industrial or the minimalist vision Psychedelic Trips To Death have given “Un/Mobility“. There is the 80s sounding “Shadows On The Wall” by Jared Kyle, while the Lia Hide version of “The Den” is a classical, stripped down affair. And that is only four songs into this 17/18 track album.

Special mention of the Rodney Orpheus (Cassandra Complex) club mix of “Red Mirror“. The song is molded into a far more post-punk direction, adding extra guitar and maybe even giving it an extra air of being subversive and dirty.

It is a melting pot of musical styles with Mechanimal as the flavouring ingredient and their friends have lovingly reworked songs to show their admiration for the talent that has gone into each. A wonderful way to celebrate a band, their work and hopefully another ten years!

https://innerear-mechanimal.bandcamp.com/

Mech_nimal | Facebook

Inner Ear Records | Facebook

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London based, post-punk trio, Black Doldrums are back with another single, “Into Blue” to tease us with before the release of the album Dead Awake. The debut album hits us 11th of March, 2022 on Fuzz Club Records.

There is a sonorous beauty to “Into Blue“. Gibbard’s vocals gracefully take centre stage while the sweet chime of guitars is pervasive, making the hairs on the back of your neck rise. How do you explain a piece of music that resonates at a primal level to your very core.

A slow burning shoegaze ballad. There are touches of Ride, Joy Division and Jesus and Mary Chain throughout. The video is a black and white extension of the music, that explores the play of dark and light. “Into Blue” is yet another example of the skill of the band to craft guitar based delights. We count the days to the release of the album.

https://blackdoldrums.bandcamp.com/

Black Doldrums | Facebook

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Those that know the US act, Strap On Halo, will know of their singer, Layla Reyna and if you don’t then you are in for something a bit special. After relocating to Seattle and finding Strap On Halo on a hiatus, Reyna created Licorice Chamber for herself and in doing so, released the EP, “The Taste Of Falling“. This is a project that she not only does the vocals for, but apart from the guitar work, impressively, everything else is her including writing the music. Four of the five tracks, feature Michel Rowland of New Zealand bands Disjecta Membra and Dreams Are Like Water on guitar and as you will find out, he was not the only guest.

If “As The World Breathes” is any indication of what this album is going to be like, then this is going to be a treat. A mixture of electronic beats, melancholy guitar, and Layla’s vocals just flowing seamlessly into your ears. What catches my attention is the heavy down notes of piano and guitar. The beautiful, “This Love Is Dark” is mesmerizing and this it the Codename:Lola remix. Codename:Lola is the project for UK artist Lee Meadows. Full of lament and longing of wanting a little bit longer. The synths are just wonderful, along with the jangle of guitar make it a truly haunting number that gets under your skin.

The sliding notes of the guitar again are spine tingling in “Just Like The Horror Movies” as Rowland out does himself. Reyna makes horror movies so far appealing with those sensual vocals, luring you into a gorgeous nightmare. “It’s An Illusion” just floats and while it has a Siouxsie Sioux vibe, it is definitely all Reyna. New Zealander, Blair Wotton (Columns Of Sand, Froithead, The Flickering) provides the fuzzing guitar that fits in perfectly with the electronics. The final track is the original version of “This Love Is Dark” which is far more stripped back than the remix yet it does not detract as you hear all the nuances that make up this shadowy fantasy.

There is something inextricably deep and sensuous about “The Taste Of Falling“. It could be the composition or the beautiful singing. Maybe the guitar work that harkens back to albums like Pornography that give you goosebumps. Whatever it is, Licorice Chamber has it in spades. There is a palpable texture of velvet and satin to lay your fevered brain and rest as the quality of the recording, mixing and mastering is perfect. Just for good measure, it was mastered by Gordon Young of Children On Stun fame. This is a cracker of an EP and I am left craving more………..

Music | Licorice Chamber

Licorice Chamber | Facebook

Music | Disjecta Membra (bandcamp.com)

Head Damage EP | Column of Sand (bandcamp.com)

Head Damage EP | Column of Sand (bandcamp.com)

Children on Stun Official Website

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In Milan, Italy, there is an act called Hidden House, an amalgamation of two local talents, Fran Cesco (vocals, guitar) and Giò (vocals, bass, programming). They have dropped the single “Hide” with a rather spooky video, off the album, Inside The Hidden House, that was released last year.

The tone is set from the beginning with the synthesised harpsichord. This reminds me a lot of the gothic music that was coming out in the early 90s… muted vocals that haunt you over the dark vampiric styling of a dark dance room ball.

The beat with the twang of the bass, propel this forward. Those fond of gothic lace, bats and such things are going to love everything going on in this. It reminds me of another Italian band called Flower Of Sin. Dare you “Hide” in the Hidden House?!

https://hiddenhouse1.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/HiddenHouseBand