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A hex is a spell or a charm, bestowed by a person that might otherwise be called a witch. Margot Day is Metamorph and March saw the release of the new album HEX on Distortion Records. Day has been in the New York gothic scene since the 80s, which means the lady has a wealth of experience and as a practising witch, imbues her songs with the spellbinding heart and soul of her craft. If this wasn’t bewitching enough, May 31st sees Metamorph drop the EP Wasteland Witch RMX, with re-imaginings by Silver Walks and Vetica in order to get your woo woo on. So, we played our tarot cards right and managed to conjure up a link to the enchantress known as Margot Day in order to ask her a few pressing questions about herself and HEX.

Where night nor day ever meet, welcome Margot Day to the ritual grounds that is Onyx.

Margot, you play the flute, so are we to gather you are classically trained and if so how do you think this drew you into the gothic scene?

Yes I am classically trained in flute, and my voice in opera. I drew a lot from this classical background in the arts. My mom was a dancer and theater person who put me on the stage as a 2-year-old, and my dad a artist who played the piano – I joined him on the flute when I was 7 years old – playing classical music as a child. Gothic literature. High-art with its deep meaningful themes of darkness, life and the hereafter, immortals, the supernatural, all these elements of haunting beauty—it was a natural bridge. I wanted to create music with layers of depth, timelessness, enhanced by a mystical witchy vibe – gothic is the perfect genre for me.

You have been a fixture of the New York post-punk scene since the early 80s, playing with bands such as The Plaque and Slow Walk 13. What was it like back then, and do you look back with great nostalgia or is it all a bit of a blurr?

More of a blurr! A glorious wild blurr… But honestly maybe because I am always creating something – I kinda naturally live in a blurr anyways.

Since that time, you have gone on to create the project Metamorph, where you are the lead singer. Could you give us a little background on how the band started and also members please?

I had a profound healing experience. I had lived with chronic pain for many years and then went through what I consider both a psychic and medical miracle. Its chronicled in the “Metamorph Healing Documentary” On YouTube. I had temporarily given up on making music because of the pain – during the healing process I reconnected with my life destiny and the promise I made to the powers that be that I would make music in this life-time. The Metamorph line-up is me, Thaliana on back vox and keys. My twin flame and partner Kurtis Knight sings and plays soundscapes. Our daughter Julifer Day sings on some of the Metamorph albums and contributes lyrics.

2024 has seen the new album “HEX” drop. Coming out of covid, etc, how long have you been working on this album and was it an easy or laborious task?

Covid stopped me in my tracks – I went into a deep funk grieving for all the shows that were cancelled. Everything fell apart. A time of re-evaluating who I am and what I wanted. Facing myself and my pain ALONE. It took about a year of curling up weeping – and then… I realized how much I wanted to create new songs in a way that was my own – isolation was key.

The songs poured out of me – nothing laborious about it – like a waterfall that just keeps flowing – I reached out producer Erik Gustafson of Adoration Destroyed and Eva X, and with his musical talent and production skills this phase of Metamorph was born. Erik is the Metamorph Alchemist and an integral part of the current Metamorph projects. First album after Covid was “Kiss of the Witch”. Then came HEX. We are deep in it with the new songs for the next album.

The album drips in subjects of witchcraft, occultism and walking between two worlds, spiritual and physical. Is this a subject that has always fascinated you?

Absolutely – Metamorph drips with Witchcraft. I am a Witch. Nature magic. Vortexes and altered dimensions. Pure healing magic.

For me, I see a lot of your music as an expression of feminine power and resilience, especially as witches are often thought of as being female. Do you think this a true statement and what are your thoughts?

My parents never made me feel like “being a girl” was some kind of handicap. So I don’t really think about myself in terms of feminine power. However, power and resilience are my mantra. It is my hope that Metamorph encourages by example for others to find their own power and resilience. Are Witches only women? I don’t know. But I doubt it.

We have to ask…what do you mean by “Woo Woo,” does it have the same connotations as the more British version of getting up to a certain type of mischief and what has this all to do with cats?

Woo Woo – I mean sexy witchy magical fun. To me black cats are the emblem of witchyness….

Here at Onyx, we are most appreciative of the title track “HEX”, and delight in the lyrics ‘Your eyes, like onyx stones, A power source deep and dark.’ You got that right baby! Do you have any favorite tracks off the new album?

No favorites. Each track has its own life. Each song is its own multidimensional jewel.

You have excellent taste in who you work with as far as remixes go including Adoration Destroyed and SPANKTHENUN. This album has some stonkingly good remixes by Assemblage 23, Grendel and MORIS BLAK. How did you get these guys involved?

Shout out to William Zimmerman of Moon Coil Media for connecting me with some of them. Having my music remixed by these brilliant successful remixers is one of the greatest joys for me. Gratitude. LOVE IT!! Just got a HEX remix done by Chris Hall of Stabbing Westward – out now all platforms. AMAZING!! My intention is to honor the Metamorph HEX album with various remixes over the next few months. Wasteland Witch remixes drop May 31 featuring Silver Walks. HEXPLAY – THE HEX CD REMIXES EP” drops July 12 with a remix from Leaether Strip and a surprise witchy chant from me – and an intense version of Red Roses from Third Realm plus a few other surprises from my label Distortion Production.

Metamorph is definitely electronic influenced but within you hear the classical music influence, and you still play the flute. How would you describe the sound of Metamorph?

Goth Pop – meaningful, deep, danceable, witchy, catchy and fun.

What music and acts drew you into the gothic genre?

It’s all a blurrrrrr lol…

Who do you get a kick out of listening to now?

I have Metamorph on repeat in my head 24/7 – songs I am writing they haunt me. Sadly not much airspace for other music….

If you were granted the ability to have one extraordinary witchy power, what would you choose and why?

The superpower to inspire others to be creative – opening their hearts and minds. I want to be the ripple in the ocean that spreads into infinity leaving a trail of fairy dust, sparkles and love.

What is next for Margot Day and Metamorph?

The next single drops at the end of the summer – this is first single for the Metamorph 2025 album…..

HEX | Metamorph (Margot Day) (bandcamp.com)

Wasteland Witch RMX | Metamorph (Margot Day) (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/Metamorphmusic/

http://metamorphmusic.org/

https://www.instagram.com/metamorph_music/?hl=en

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Dolly Dagger is an ex-pat Australian, living in the USA, creating her own style of dark pop music. Her new single is called “Tower,” on which she has collaborated with guitarist Jesse McInturff and producer Louie Diller.

Photo by Kim Peterson

The slow burn start builds the tension, and when we reach the chorus, there is the iteration of I’m not your prey. A call to arms amidst growling guitar work and shrieking synths, about the power of the female character.

There is also a lush video saturated in a fantasy vision of history directed by Dagger that accompanies the single. “Tower” is Dolly Dagger’s ode to never giving in no matter the odds, or how much people tell you that you shall never succeed by being your own tower of strength.

Music | Dolly Dagger (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/DollyDaggerxo

Dolly Dagger (dollydaggerxo.com)

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Jelmer Luimstra is an Amsterdam based musician/producer, and in 2023, he created the post-punk project April Afternoon. The latest single is called “Modern Lovers” is their fourth release.

The electronics are light and breezy, accompanied by the drum machine and the vocals that are easy to listen to. The lyrics are testament to a romance timeless and idealised, from a bygone era…. or are they???! It reminds me a lot of The Bolshoi, who were wonderfully whimsical and dark.

New wave is alive and dancing away in “Modern Lovers.” It really harkens back to the early 80s, where you can imagine a noir style video in the style of Ultravox’s “Vienna,” draped in shadows, smoke and silk. April Afternoon will be dropping the EP I’m Coming Home in June, which will feature “Modern Lovers.”

Modern Lovers | April Afternoon (bandcamp.com)

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Shall we travel into the “BLACK ABYSS” where humanity eeks out their days? This is the latest single from Brit MATT HART, and there probably isn’t a better group of acts to remix this single than Opal Dusk, Modulate, Teknovore and SPANKTHENUN,

The original track is an interesting mixture of light synths against the bleak vocals of HART and the plunging rhythms, probing the darkest depths that the humans have had to dig themselves into for mere survival. The Opal Dusk remix is a highlight of the bright synths with MATT HART’s angst, while the Modulate version is like a slow burn, making you wait on the edge for it to climax, and just when you think it never will, the track picks you up in a swirling maelstrom. The prowess of Teknovore is going to hit you with a dance floor killer, that is constantly on the move and emphasising the desperation of the vocals, while the SPANKTHENUN BOOTLEG MIX has the vocals at the fore, echoing and malevolent, as if there has been that loss of humanity, perhaps devoid of their own souls.

The ongoing tale of flesh versus machine is MATT HART’s opus. A story against all odds and it isn’t over yet as alien machines terraform a planet into a cold wasteland, whilst attempting to exterminate the human pests who must burrow into the soil, towards the warmth and safety of the core. As always, it is so interesting to hear the different takes on “BLACK ABYSS” and what each musician takes from the track. From the original version through to the remixes, they all have that wonderful synergy and all belong in the clubs.

BLACK ABYSS EP | MATT HART (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/djmatthartuk

https://www.instagram.com/matthart3808

Music | Opal Dusk (bandcamp.com)

Music | Modulate (bandcamp.com)

Music | TeknoVore (bandcamp.com)

Music | spankthenun (bandcamp.com)

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Giglinger are a post-punk rock band from Finland, who have been around since the 90s. In December, they released a four track EP called React, which is also out on limited 12″ vinyl, and has its international release in the European Spring of 2024.

The first track “Murder,” greets your ears with a sonic front of guitar, which becomes layered with even more guitar and feedback, fed by the ever present drums. The vocals chime in, gravelly and forceful on occasion but this is all about the guitars being centre stage. With no time to waste, it is straight into “Chant.” Altered vocals are anguished and pushed to breaking point, while the guitars surge and boil

The rumble of bass and more completive guitar rolls into the glorious “MIA.” This possibly the most shoegaze like track and it is truly breath taking, whisking you away. “Prague” is the heaviest of all the tracks, in a progressive rock vein. Building in volume and strength, while the low vocals almost imperceptible, creeping in, before they ring out clear and stark.

There is something very familiar about Giglinger’s music and it isn’t that I have heard the tracks before, but rather it is more the way they evoke the love of soaring shoegaze guitar and the irreverence in sticking to a set pattern, rather following the music. This style means some pieces are much longer but in essence never feel over extended, A solid EP for Giglinger.

React | giglinger (bandcamp.com)

http://www.giglinger.com/

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The Greek god of industrial beats has to be George Klontzas of Teknovore, and he is back with a new single “Citadel,” featuring British industrial aggrotech group Biomechanimal. Out on Infacted Recordings, this single is from the up and coming album Caerdroi and coupled with a second track “Oubliette.”

Matthew L. Simpson’s vocals rasp out the lyrics he has penned, grating along the raw nerves that are vibrating with the super crushing bass and beats. There is a air of heaviness and impending doom should one re-enter the “Citadel” with spiralling electronics booming into the darkness.

“Oubliette” is more a thumping race against time with the female vocals repeating Is this a dream?, as if the question will snap them out of the techno terror. The synths are scintillating, pushing your muscles to move with a mind of their own.

Both tracks are dance floor killers, and I have to say we are spoilt for choice with two very different industrial pieces. As a forerunner to the album, a Caerdroia is a Welsh term for a maze, with the single being called “Citadel” which is of course a fortified city and “Oubliette” being a type of dungeon with one small opening….. is this all to do with the legend of Theseus, the Minotaur and the Labyrinth? Time only will tell but in the meantime get lost in the “Citadel.”

Citadel (Feat. Biomechanimal) | Teknovore | Infacted Recordings (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/TeknoVoreMusic

teknovore | Instagram, Facebook | Linktree

Music | Biomechanimal (bandcamp.com)

http://www.facebook.com/BiomechanimalMain

https://linktr.ee/Biomechanimal

https://www.instagram.com/biomechanimal

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The new album Glimmer came out in April, but right now I am going to drag your attention to Lunar Paths’ single release “A Star At Dawn.” It dropped in March for the duo of Diane Dubois and Kevin Hunter, and I think it deserves its own time in the moonlight.

A depth to the electronics, an undercurrent of something ancient in the Middle Eastern lilt of the vocals and instrumentation, while the drums pick their way on the odyssey. Like Venus at the end of night, Dubois‘ vocals light the way and are a bridge between the past and present.

Lunar Paths are masters of intertwining darkwave with world music. Entrancing and exotic, they pour themselves into these tracks because they see the beauty in how an instrument sounds or can influence the overall ambience. I love the ability to express themselves in such an alluring manner and “A Star At Dawn” might my favourite to this date while following the Lunar Paths.

A Star at Dawn | Lunar Paths (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/LunarPathsMusic

https://www.lunarpaths.com

https://www.instagram.com/lunar.paths

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Now here is a conundrum…. Washington based project Zabus has dropped two albums within three months of each…this year. Soooo, I have decided to showcase the latest release, The Future Of Death, which is out on the non-profit label Saccharine Underground. Jeremy Moore (Thee Rise Ov Sadistic Youth, Zero Swann, Garozde) started Zabus in 2023, joined by fellow musicians Peter Hallock (Garozde), Alkane Shimizu (Zero Swann) and, for this album, Jeroen Achterburg. By the way, is it just me or is the cover channelling New Order’s Movement?

From the get go, there is the jangly guitar with reflective echoing and sweetly morose vocals. The guitars do not seem to want to follow the script as evidenced in “Columbarium” where they go from Southern Gothic plucking to wandering through the track, all the while the electronics blow through in the background. “Subversion” is in the territory of causing your skin to gooseflesh with its haunting simplicity, slowly tracing ephemeral fingers, raising ghosts of 80s British post-punk bands in their wake.

Necro means death and graphs are a pictorial way of representing data, so possibly the track “Necrographs” is about wanting an organised knowledge of what happens after the last breath has left the body. The ability to quantify the final moments and beyond if there is one, “Necrographs” eerily drones with rhythmic oddities holding it together, while the synths wend their way, with the occasional instrumental scream into the void.

The drawling “Captor” leads you down a road of torment of when lovers no longer feel that pull and yet cannot leave, maybe due to fear. The heavy bass is beautiful in “Retribution,” married to the fabulous striking guitars and clicking beats. Honestly, the guitars are the feature of this track and I really adored it. We are thrown into the far more experimental and psychedelic “The All Light,” filled with reverb and distortion, and I can’t help but smile as it reminds me of Bauhaus in some ways. There is also some pretty intense imagery within the lyrics.

There is that Southern Gothic feel again in “Burst Oppression,” and it is eloquent in both tone and vocal imagery, with a true sense of loss and complete hopelessness, dropping us in an expansive desert of mortality. Last track is “Solstice,” and it is poignant and dark. Perhaps it is looking back to a point in history where life was given so that life could continue, in the form of sacrifice or mayhap star crossed lovers, but it lets your imagination run wild with the possibilities.

Moore’s vocals are very reminiscent of Ian Astbury and are a delight to behold. For me, this is the essence of gothic/post-punk music. There are the tried and true expressions of the style from the guitar flourishes, introspective lyrics, brooding vocals and looking through a romanticised lens, a vision of dark beauty encompassing life, death and spirituality. However there is also an experimental pushing of the boundaries, asking instruments to make sounds that they are not necessarily meant to make and not sticking to set musical formulae, which makes Zabus just that little more exciting. Both “The Future Of Death” and “Topography Of Iconoclast” are really worth treating your ears with, so you might savour the intricacies of weaving more traditional gothic, with something I would equate in the region of when you first hear Einstürzende Neubauten and it just blows your mind.

The Future Of Death | Zabus (bandcamp.com)

http://www.twitter.com/@zabusmusic

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Yeah, there was no way I was going to give up the chance to review an EP called Fuck, from a noise artist by the name of Conan The Accountant. Is this all adding up yet and does he get upset by magic? We have not all the answers, but I can tell you that the three tracks on the EP have been woven with whatever noise that Conan (known to his friends as Ben) can push out of a Fender Stratocaster.

There might be a ghost in the machine when it comes to the first track “Of Death And Taxes,” as strange vocalisations issue forth from an miasma of laid back noise. It is off to the demon faire to see the “Clown Girl From Hell,” and she does sound like a sassy lass performing in a circus of heady oddities, where the music see-saws between show time and walking the tightrope. It seems to almost seamlessly slips into “Conan The Accountant And The Cave Of The Cursed 1000,” where our hero shall slay all before him with his calculator as it computes and warbles, plodding down his foe with mathematical precision.

Why is this EP called Fuck? I really have no clue on that one, but hey, it catches your attention in case Conan The Accountant doesn’t. Rock noise with a tortured Fender seems the way to go and it is a fun concept, plus it is pretty amazing how many different sounds can be extruded from the one instrument.

Fuck | Conan The Accountant (bandcamp.com)

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Arguably, Robots In Love is one of the best dark electronic rock bands in New Zealand right now, lead by front woman Elenor Rayner (vocals, synths, programming), with Alex Burchell (drums), Tony Lumsden (bass) and Brett Lemmon (guitar). These very experienced musicians have dropped the new single “Unbreakable” with two bonus remixes.

A slow and purpose filled build up from the start, with the rumbling affirmation of the title, wrapped up in tendrils of a classical edge, enticingly liquid next to the unwavering, steeled vocals of Rayner. Of the two remixes, the first is the EBM remix by Rayner, which has adopted a faster pace, and has a really tribal ambiance with enhanced electronics, while the second, Magnetique remix, happens to be bandmate Burchell behind the desk, creating a second dance track that again exudes an indomitable spirit.

“Unbreakable is about how we feel the minute we walk on stage. It’s about being in the place where you feel at your strongest, and connecting with other people to increase that strength.” – Elenor Rayner

Oh my, for me Rayner exudes feminine power, not to mention wearing that lovely corset, made me think of that other female warrior, Xena, in the video, which makes my heart melt a little more for Robots In Love. This is a boot stomping affair, which I associate with epic anthems such as Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” with its positive declaration that doing something you love with like-minded people can make you “Unbreakable.”

Unbreakable | Robots In Love (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/robotsinlovemusic

https://www.instagram.com/robotsinlove