Are they noise rock? Experimental rock? Post-punk? All of it? I am talking about London’s test plan, the busy trio, who when they are not writing, are recording and when doing neither of these, they are touring. test plan are releasing their first first four singles, oddly called Four Songs on vinyl, however in the meantime, they have dropped a live video named Live in Darkness One, recorded at the Manor House Studio. A taste of the live experience.
Live In Darkness One | test plan
If you have not heard of Silver SIrcus yet, then I would implore you to have a listen. The Meanjin/Brisbane based group is headed by the vocal magnificence of Lucinda Shaw (lead/backing vocals) and the ever so talented James Lees (drums, percussion, synths), the progenitors of Silver Sircus in 2008. The band is completed by Mark Angel (guitars), Terry Dixon (bass guitar, backing vocals), Ruth Gardner (guitars, backing vocals), James Halloran (piano, backing vocals) and Wayne Jennings (cello, backing vocals), and they have dropped their new EP, The Bones Of You.
The title track speaks of the past, and people in that past that have influenced where you are now, whether for good or bad. There is an eerie seductiveness in both the vocals and strings, and the arrangement is beautifully done, where every component is heard. No singing or instruments are lost in the mix, making the track sound classic and intimate, with a haunting piano that is enough to give one goose bumps.
The beginning of “Under Your Skin” feels like it is bubbling forth from your stomach, a mixture of tribalistic rhythm and Western drawling guitar, with the mistress of dark temptation, luring into her boudoir, making demons and spiders seem positively what you need in your brain right now. The disjointed piano from Halloran is a sharpness that could warn of danger or mental collapse, however Shaw’s singing eases all, dragging you under her spell yet again.
The Bones Of You, for myself, is a moody cabaret, where the participants have exposed their inner insecurities and cracked open their chests revelling bleeding, beating hearts. It is about finite span of this human coil, yet still finding beauty in that ultimate fragility, known as the human condition. As magical as the music is, there is no denying how electrifying the vocals of Shaw are, and she creates the theatre in each track. The cover photo Silver Sircus have chosen is such a great representation of the EP. A flower that looks as if it made of a skeleton, simultaneously looking both alien and fragile and yet alive. The end comes for everything, but that just should remind us to live and love for today, and The Bones Of You is a graceful expression of mortality.
Hamartia means a fatal flaw in relation to a hero, and flawed heroes are very prominent in Greek mythology. Hamartia – Part One is also the new EP from Teknovore, aka George Klontzas, who also often steeps his techno industrial music in the Greco mythos he grew up with. The EP consists of five tracks and is out on the Infacted Recordings label.
The title track, “Hamartia” kicks this all off, with tribal rhythms that could rattle your teeth and shake a dancefloor, and there are glimmers of acid house synths in the mix, reminiscent of The Shamen and Prodigy. It is a whirlwind of electronics, with occasional female vocals.
The ancient Greeks believed in “Ekyprosis” or the intermittent destruction of the universe by fire, also known as conflagration, and then follows renewal. It hits like a burst of energy and plays a news reel about the dangers of Raves on the teenage mind. Maybe this is the destruction of the world as the parents knew it, when their children found a new reason to be, burning through the rave culture.
French duo Moaan Exis, feature on “Disclose,” giving the track a far more heavier and harsher industrial sound, as it throbs and bounces between revelation and gritty repulsion. The vocals want to reel you in with emotional attachment and then in the next moment revile you.
There is deception at hand with “Coercion” as it leads you down the dance path, towards…. what? The music is techno brilliance, that builds and swells, with an intermittent female vocalist, who stays perfectly in rhythm, hinting at the murky company being kept.
Last track is the entrancing “Autonomy,” featuring Marie L. Dragontown, better known for her project name Grabyourface, Dragontown lends her smouldering spoken words to the heavily techno orientated music, with a serious and very current underlaying message about targeting people for their nationality, faith and sexual preferences. When the personal becomes completely impersonal.
There is nothing flawed about this EP, and especially not the hero of our story, Klontzas. Hamartia is rich in electronic sounds that vary from techno and rave, through to cyber industrial and EBM. The beauty is that this is Part 1, so technically there is more Teknovore waiting in the wings to take us on another epic odyssey.
If you are a frequent voyeur here, you would know that US band, Who Saw Her Die?, are avid horror fans, where that love bleeds, extensively, into their music, and they often mark certain occasions with a release. They celebrated Friday the thirteenth with an EP called Circling.
The EP is made up of three original tracks and three remixes, and it all kicks off with “Circling Around Us” which immediately makes me think of JAWS, the movie that made a generation decide swimming pools were a safer option, whilst warily keeping an eye on the waters when near the sea. The lyrics about being pulled under, salt and splintering wood make it feel even more certain we are being stalked by the great white shark, and the drum machine clatters on without remorse, as the vocals powerfully echo and paint the impending doom.
“Showing You More” is possibly Evil Dead, though I am no expert on the horror genre, however, the track itself has a more post-punk flavour and the rhythm has an interesting squelching sound. The vocals are clear and haunting about the book that cannot be destroyed. This is definitely a dancefloor scorcher. The final track before the three remixes, is “The Price,” and I really couldn’t tell you where this is tale of ancient creeping evil, invading the minds of the forlorn is from, but it spins like it is possessed.
Pick your terror, for it does not have to be Friday the 13th in order to enjoy these excerpts of dark delight, and should you feel something is watching you from the shadows, maybe it is just Who Saw Her Die? as they are Circling…..
Who Saw Her Die? (@whosawherdie) • Instagram photos and videos
The end of January had US label, Re:Mission Entertainment, dropping the Stuck EP, a cross pollination between Warm Gadget and Snowbeasts. The EP is three tracks long that is a blending of Warm Gadget’s brusque, 90s styled industrial and Snowbeasts‘ modern EBM.
The title track intro powerfully looms into being before you hear the very recognisable vocals of Tim Vester. The clattering beats and vocals lean into the buzz cut guitar, while above the tempst, there is the ghost like touch of synths and the ethereal singing of Elizabeth Virosa. You can hear the influence of Snowbeasts in the rhythms of “Bodiless.” The electronics screaming is high pitched, and soon are mixing with the twisting female vocals, looping into a hypnotic fever dream, which feels like it might never end.
Last track, “Lost Dub” is going to fool you on first listen. It seems to meander slowly, though suddenly atmosphere becomes heavy as a raucous electronic noise bubbles infect your ears. The rhythms do not change one iota, but you could swear things started moving faster and became more menacing, until we get to the winding down end.
Collaborations when done well will always be entertaining, as you tend to get the best of both worlds, where something new and exciting occurs. And so Stuck gives us an intersection meeting of Warm Gadget’s punchy, slap down, 90s metal industrial, tempered by the electronic gossamer nuances of Snowbeasts’ more modern style. I am all here for this!
Stuck EP | Warm Gadget x Snowbeasts | Re:Mission Entertainment
Snowbeasts (@snowbeasts_pvd) • Instagram photos and videos
There is an ill wind and hark….is it an EP or an album??? We aren’t quite sure, but we know it is Sinister Fate when we see them. Also, that the album is called Profit of Doom, which was released back in August by the guys from Chicago, and it is a monster mash of singles, new tracks, covers and remixes.
There are the two singles, with the first on show being “beLIEve,” a cross between the horror movies that are The Purge series and real life unrest on the home front. The rich verses poor and ideologies burning in the veins of the zealots. It is pure grimy rock with a punk ethos and a guitar solo that sings out. The other is the horror infused “Meet Mister Scratch,” who is the thinly disguised devil with an agenda to sell to those whose moral compass might be a little off target, for the simple low price of a soul.
I thought the title of the track “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” was very familiar, and it turns out that is indeed a cover of the Filter song, which has that heavy hanging bass at its core and although not a cover, “VVitch” feels like an ode to The Cure through the guitar work and drums sounding like they could of come off the Pornography album.
Sinister Fate carry on the proud tradition of goth horror rock, which is full of symbolism and often tongue in cheek observations about the true monsters of the world. I wonder if the band is somewhat inspired by the late, great Pete Steele, especially with the inference of the title of the album and the Type O Negative’s track “The Profit of Doom” off the 2007 album Dead Again. Profit Of Doom is a nice mixture old and new, with the remixes that just give another facet to the band. It is part goth, part rock and all horror babe..
Profit Of Doom | Sinister Fate | SINISTER FATE
• SINISTER FATE • (@sinisterfate) | AllMyLinks
• SINISTER FATE • (@sinisterfateofficial) • Instagram photos and videos
Author Edgar Allan Poe, is recognised as one of the progenitors of gothic story telling, writing tales that are both beautiful in prose, and full of lurking and foreboding grimness. Canadian Ian Revell has retold the Poe story, The Tell-Tale Heart, via his project Double Eyelid, which is an EP in four parts, set to its own gothic soundtrack.
Revell’s low and gravelled spoken vocals rumbles forth, in track one and behind him, wavers a lone violin, eerily scratching away, high pitched. The words are unhurried, with a sense of menace, and with the inclusion of a guitar, piano and drums, the singing begins. It is akin to listening to Rozz Williams (Christian Death), which sends me down the rabbit hole of wondering if Williams would have loved to do this. I think so. The guitar is the major driving force for the first rack, while track two, it is mostly a lone piano, that wanders and is yet to hint of the on coming terror.
The third track is where the murderer hides the body, and the proud fellow whistles along, assured of his cleverness. It is most interesting that the music has taken on, one could say, a more militaristic semblance, with the rat-a-tat of a snare drum, a popular instrument of British and American armies of the 18th and 19th centuries. Track four has a delicacy with the singular piano and when you perceive the stringed instruments, the atmosphere is quickly changing, with Revell perfectly putting across the spiralling mind of the murderer, lost in the culmination of alarm and dread.
The Tell-Tale Heart was first published in 1834, yet, like most of Poe’s compositions, it is ultimately about the human condition, the recognition that people are flawed and more to the point, we are able to see this is all still relevant. A narrator speaks of planning and murdering an old man, thence hiding the dismembered remains under the floorboards. They lie to the constabulary, but knowing the truth causes guilt and the narrator begins to mentally breakdown. It is the fear of being found out, and the overwhelming terror as they believe they can hear the heartbeat of the dead man, haunting them until they confess their wrongs. Already a powerful short story, Double Eyelid has brought The Tell-Tale Heart to life in all its true gothic glory, letting you listen to a man’s decent into psychological torment, and every moment is a pure delight.
doubleeyelid.bandcamp.com/album/edgar-allan-poes-the-tell-tale-heart
Double Eyelid (@doubleeyelid) • Instagram photos and videos
Let’s go back to January of this year and visit an EP from Copenhagen’s Sanity Overdrive called god.clear (). The man behind this project is PaweÅ‚ Mielcarek (Anthropoid Idol, ex-Haemorrhagic Diarrhea), and he meshes dark synthwave with nihilistic industrial.
We kick off with the short lived intro “Invocatio,” which leads into “L’autoportrait binaire,” filled with the drone of an electric guitar, the focal piece, while the synths is the softer foil, making the grinding guitar even more aggressive as it gathers speed.
The electronic knocking rhythm is soon joined by the guitar in “Nur-noch-leben,” building up the growing suspense. The air is becoming thick with the ever pervading pressure of the pounding beats and driving guitar.
The final track is the galvanic “Black Screen,” as the guitar buzzes angrily with the pounding beat. It is a cohesive explosive attack from a well oiled machine, asserting its dominance, thundering in fury, with the ominous synths raising the foreboding portent of something this way coming.
There is a bleakness to the music that the industrial aspect feeds into and the synthwave is often used as the emotive over tones, seeking to coat each track in variants of darkness. Sanity Overdrive’s gods.clear() EP is an abrasive sonic journey.
NØIR and Silver Walks may not have been heard from recently, but that does not mean that they have not been busy. Athan Maroulis (NØIR, Spahn Ranch, Black Tape For A Blue Girl) and Daniel McCullough (Silver Walks) have collaborated again, recording a cover of “Nothing Stays” by Cyberaktif, and originally released on the Wax Trax! label.
There is a sacred reverence almost for this track. The reflective vocals bear a lament about how everything must change, an acknowledgement of time marching on. Maroulis’ unmistakeable vocals, with Veil’s delicious backing singing are in perfect sync with the electronics, that blink away, filling all the dark spaces, which leaves you nearly breathless in the utter beauty of “Nothing Stays.”
Maroulis laid down the vocals in New York, and the programming in Lancaster PA, by McCullough, also adding backing vocals from Valentina Veil (VV & the Void) recorded in Berlin, mixed in LA by Dan Evans (Die Warzau) and and mastered by Eric Oehler (KLACK) in Madison, WI.
The rest of the EP contains remixes from Luna of S Y Z Y G Y X, David Dutton of genCAB and Oehler of KLACK, with each surprising you with how different all three tracks truly are. NØIR vs Silver Walks’ cover version, eerily still has that Skinny Puppy sound that remind you that Cevin Key and Dwayne Goettel were in Cyberaktif, along with Bill Leeb of Frontline Assembly. This is so close to perfection.
silver walks – emotional electronics
Montreal’s SEXSOMNIA is made up Philip Faith (vocals, keyboards, bass, drum programming), Pat Gaudette (bass) and Michael Rien (keyboards, percussion), a blend of darkwave and electronics with a generous hint of taboo. Following up the release of their single “Forbidden,” SEXSOMNIA dropped in August, the EP also called Forbidden.
“Forbidden” and “Forbidden (Shadow Mix),” are the gateway to the EP, your pass into the world of potential pleasure via the sensuous tones of guest vocalist, Marita Volodina, with her sumptuous lip-service to extasy, and Faith’s more abrasive utterances.
Isabelle Young can be found lending her voice to “Vapor,” an utterly danceable track with rolling rhythms and post-punk bass guitar. Young’s vocals bring the exotic into excitingly charged song, which still is ethereal in quality. “Nigrum Viduam” features guest vocalist Jacinthe Benoit, and has been remixed by Martin Bowes, best known for his project ATTRITION. The Set You Free Mix takes this track that was released previously on the album Transcendent, making it feel grittier and more subversive, adding a harsher edge.
The ladies who have given their vocal talent on each song, definitely imbue their track with an essence of prohibited indulgence, be it heavy, airy or somewhere in between, but always sensual and done beautifully in conjunction with the music. SEXOMNIA are daring you to live on the edge a little, so you might find pleasure in the art of the Forbidden.
