Do you have a funny little Valentine? Do you, and they, err on the more darkside of life? Then you might truly be ready to romance your other half with the single “My Bloody Valentine” by Who Saw Her Die?!
Get hot and heavy with the danceable beats, and the breathy vocals, groaning in your ears. Nothing says I find you deathly attractive than background screaming electronics and lyrics that speak of asphyxiation and being someone’s dirty buried secret. And you also get the extra bonus of two extended/remix versions of this artery splurging track. WhoSaw Her Die? are bringing the electronic darkwave for you to exsanguinate for the one you hate to adore. So, in that vein, will you be “My Bloody Valentine“?
Shadows Forming is new album from Helsinki based witchy rockers, Hauntees, which will be released on the 28th of February. out on Xonoring Records. Members, Aiju Salminen (bass, vocals), Heini Kauppinen (guitar, vocals, organ), Piia Jalkanen (guitar, backing vocals) and Teemu Kumpulainen (drums), have dropped the single “All Over Again” as a touch stone for Shadows Forming.
The drums are clean and punchy, with fellow rhythm section partner, the bass guitar, up and front, dusting the tune with heavy intent. There is a lilting sadness from the guitars and the vocals fluctuate from singular to the harmonies in the chorus.
“We want to reach toward other worlds with our music, beyond everyday reality, When we write songs, we describe them to each other through places, films, and moods.” – Hauntees
I really like the fact the single is not overly processed, as if I could expect them to sound like this live, which lends an air of feeling fresh and not bound to being absolutely perfect. In other words, a rawness as the Hauntees wrap their vision around your ears. We don’t mind listening to the Hauntees “All Over Again.”
It is 2026, but it still feels like we are holding our collective breath, and you have to let truths be heard. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, also goes by the moniker of Veil of Shadows, his gothic music project. He has released the single “Familiars,” which was recorded, mixed and mastered at The Cat Mansion.
The band wears their influences on their sleeve. The guitar speaks of a love of the way Wayne Hussey plays, between early Sisters of Mercy and The Mission, and even the raw emotion of his vocals in that vein. The drums provide the perfect background as they thunder true, adding weight to the lyrics.
“Familiars” is about the current political machinations of the US government, who say one thing and do the exact opposite, creating uncertainty and dread for many Americans, and indeed for those overseas watching. Veil of Shadows has a track that speaks volumes, and it gives hope. When people openly recognise wrong doing, they drag a spotlight onto those that shrink from truth.
Ahead of the debut album release for Trans Atlantic group Death By Love, they have dropped the new single “Sellenno.” The new album, from the Polish/USA project, will be hitting us on February the 20th, called 444, out on Distortion Records
Leaning into the cyber industrial sound, the track is buzzing with electronics, creating a heaviness, with the vocals as a guiding light. The topic is even heavier than the electronics, which dips into mental torment of being a survivor, and never coming to terms with what happened, therefore becoming disassociated.
Inga Habiba and Peter Guellard are Death By Love, and “Sellenno” packs a punch whilst being a bit of a bad arse dance number. Maybe this track is the catharsis they have been searching for.
Before Christmas, three remixes were released, reimagined by Norway’s Karl Morten Dahl, that guy behind the guitar based post-punk project Antipole. These three tracks are Haunt Me’s (USA) “Cemetery Rendezvous,” The Spoiled’s (Italy) “Love Is Pain” and “Depeche Mode” by Occults (USA).
“Cemetery Rendezvous” is a gorgeous darkwave track, with the remix cloaking this Haunt Me single in swaths of shimmering guitar, elegantly enhancing the hushed tones of the low vocals.
The Spoiled already had a wonderful jangle guitar sound in “Love Is Pain,” but Dahl has worked his magic, creating guitar lines that are sonic eddies, while also bringing to the fore the lovely synths.
The original Occults track, “Depeche Mode,” is a perfect song that captures the sound of Dave Gahan & Company from the 80s, while the remix has a more ephemeral quality, with dreamy, Cure like guitar and echoing vocals.
Karl Morten Dahl has excellent taste in music and a great ear for the delicate remix, so you should do yourself a favour and have a listen. If you know the bands, then enjoy the remixes, however, if unfamiliar, you might find yourself a few new wonderful post-punk bands to immerse your ears in.
Something is a stirring at the end of 2025. International gothic super group, Beauty In Chaos have an extended single release in the form of two covers. Oh Lordie, there is going to be a reconning. The first is a folk cover, recorded as far back as 1956 by Odetta called “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” and also under this title in 2009 by the original Man In Black, Johnny Cash, as well as Marilyn Manson (2017). It has also been reproduced as “Run On” by Elvis Presley (1967) and Moby (1999), as well as others.
Photo by Anabel DFlux
You just know before a single note has been struck, this is going to be a southern gothic affair, where the coyote blues is just waiting there to bite and preacher is sizing you up for the next wooden box he’ll be sermonising over. Sure enough, there is that heavy guitar twang that rings out, joined by the gospel styled hand claps, as well as the rat-a-tat of the military drum, all calling on the day of judgement.
Back in 2003, Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros released the album Streetcore, which brought forth the single “Get Down Moses.” Oh yes, nothing like that reggae flavour, mixed with that unmistakeable Strummer guitar, and the brass section reminding us that ska is the voice of the streets. It is sassy, eexy and still runs true for the modern day.
After “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” I feel like going to listen to Concrete Blonde’s version of “God Is A Bullet,” for will there be redemption?? I don’t know, but there is a cinematic darkness that tastes like dust and smells of gunpowder. Meanwhile, “Get Down Moses” is like the medicine you never knew you needed to soothe and heal your soul. Easy to listen to and still make you realise that the more things change, the more they stay the same, A bit like “Ghost Town” by The Specials. On a side note, Michael Rozon and Michael Ciravolo are the lynch pins of Beauty In Chaos, and we all know, Michael is God’s avenging angel.
F.I.V.E, also known as Fear Increases Violent Emotion, is the soon to be released fifth album for Italy’s darkwave group, Christine Plays Viola. Massimo Ciampani (vocals), FabrizioGiampietro (guitar), MarcoDiIanni (bass guitar) and GianlucaOrsini (drums) have dropped the single “MyRedemption” as your first taste for the new album.
The deep resonance of the vocals sets the shadowy mood, while the guitar sparkles and spars for equal billing. Easily danceable and even easier on the ears, “My Redemption” is pure darkwave goodness and definitely has that European sensibility. One might say a cool touch that burns the skin, so you might want to catch up with Christine Plays Viola, and check out the vintage gothic video for “MyRedemption.”
There is an ill wind and hark….is it an EP or an album??? We aren’t quite sure, but we know it is SinisterFate when we see them. Also, that the album is called ProfitofDoom, 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 ThePurge 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 “MeetMister 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 TheCure through the guitar work and drums sounding like they could of come off the Pornography album.
SinisterFate 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 PeteSteele, especially with the inference of the title of the album and the TypeONegative’s track “The Profit of Doom” off the 2007 album DeadAgain. 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..
Italy’s VidiAquam released the album Lights and Shadows, in September. Full of post-punk goodness by members DanieleViola (electric guitars, bass, drum machine) and Nikita (voice, lyrics, synth, programming), we are going to look at the single “The Last Man on Earth.”
Purposely dark, with the only true brightness being the guitar as it twinkles between the drum machine, the heavy bass and grave vocals of Nikita. Even the synths creep through the cracks in a bleak manner, as is befitting a tale about a man who is truly alone in a apocalyptic world, living each day with only the memories of what used to be. The music video is an absolute must to watch with a nuclear nightmare vision rendered in animation. There is such sorrow in being “The Last Man on Earth” and it is beautifully conveyed by VidiAquam.
The 90s was such an odd time for music. Grunge had broken forth into the mainstream, electronic dance music was no longer something that was just heard in clubs and raves. People were mixing influences and genres such as post-punk, brit pop and shoegaze, while industrial musicians, such as Ministry, had grown teeth incorporating rock, or pursued a more techno, harsh edged dance style like TheProdigy. There was something very fluid in how musicians drew from whatever influence caught their fancy. Now, you may ask why I speak about the 90s and I will say that after listening to New York’s HeavyHalo, they have that sound…. that edge of possibility, of writing anything they wish with those influences and melding it into songs that are definitively theirs.
HeavyHalo are McKeever, who is from a more tradition post-punk/grunge band background and Gosteffects, who cut his teeth as a DJ on the illegal rave scene. Together, they have created music heavily influenced by gothic melodrama and melodies, while firmly planting their feet in industrial EDM. One part harmony, one part resonating cacophony and lashing of personal themes and dreams might be one way to begin to describe their sound. Vocalist, McKeever kindly let Onyx interrogate him about the latest album, Damaged, and most things Heavy Halo.
What prompted you in the first place to combine forces, creating Heavy Halo?
Gosteffects and I had been orbiting similar circles in the NYC underground, I’d been more in the indie/punk DIY scene and he’d been in the techno/rave scene. When we met we realized we had an ideal Venn diagram of musical tastes and focuses. We always say I’m the starter of songs and he’s the finisher. So when we came together to make music, the process flowed naturally.
Can you tell us a bit more about what you were both doing musically before Heavy Halo?
I played in noise rock bands growing up but also sang in choir and played jazz guitar. I came to NYC to study classical composition and poetry at Columbia which took me on a detour of writing string pieces and chamber pop. After graduating, I moved to Brooklyn and was working the door at venues like 285 Kent watching artists like HEALTH, Dan Deacon, Pictureplane, Deafheaven, Diiv, Vivian Girls, and endless others rip these warehouses to shreds. During this time I had an indietronica noise-pop type band called Life Size Maps. When that band imploded I knew I wanted to create its EVIL TWIN. That became Heavy Halo.
Gosteffects grew up in the Oklahoma City rave scene, throwing renegade techno parties in abandoned buildings. He was also DJing and producing, buying a Kurzweil sampler with money he saved from working at a pizza joint for two years. Eventually, he started the long-running OKC bloghouse party ROBOTIC that hosted hundreds of DJ’s like Skrillex and Steve Aoki at the height of the dance music explosion. This eventually led him to move to NYC to DJ and produce there, being a regular DJ at clubs like Webster Hall and The Box.
It could be said that you inhabit your music, that pieces of you are melded into the textures and lyrics. What is it like to hear that from the music you create?
It is definitely a strange phenomenon hearing your own music back. It is constantly shifting, when you first write something, hearing it back elicits a surprise of like: “wow this came out of me and exists now.” Then you go through a variety of phases of feeling differently about it while completing the song and it can be difficult to let a finished version go.
This question also reminds me of something a mentor of mine told me, “when you’re going to sing a song you have to think of 2 things: why you wrote it originally and why you’re singing it now.” The more time goes by, the more separate those feelings can be, but that’s what keeps a song vital and alive rather than being a museum piece.
Music is, for many cathartic, and many musicians say it is a kind of anchor, helping to deal with anxiety, stress and some mental disorders. What does music mean and do for you?
If you reach a true impasse and wall in your life that you can’t solve using logic or conventional means, sometimes writing a song is the only way to psychically overcome it. You have to write your way out of hell.
Heavy Halo dropped the album Damaged Dream back in the middle of the year, and I was wondering how long had it taken to write and then record?
It took a couple years to write and record the album, we did everything ourselves from production to tracking to the mix and master. Getting the final versions right took some time because we were balancing so many layers and trying to find just the right degree of bite vs clarity.
I read that the line ‘damage me’ comes from going to a show and seeing a bunch of beautiful punks, but can you tell the readers what the track is about?
So the whole song of Damage Me was written but I didn’t have the right chorus mantra. That weekend I ended up at a crust punk show at a scuzzy dive bar with a bunch of deathrock baddies and was like damn, I want someone to “damage me.” The song is about fucking each other to escape the fact that the world is fucked up.
The first single is also the title track, featuring Georgi Bangs on vocals. How did you get the gothic pop princess Georgi to be on “Damage Me” and why did you pick it as the taster for the album?
So, following the last question, after I had tracked vocals for the song, Gosteffects thought it was missing that final x-factor and suggested coed vocals. We had just met Georgi through the Brooklyn goth scene and realized she would absolutely crush the part, the rest is history.
We spent a rigorous but entirely fulfilling weekend shooting the videobrilliant Max Novaenergy of the track we decided to make it the first single we dropped for Damaged Dream.
I hear a lot of The Prodigy in the single, plus it has that high energy associated with a lot of the industrial music of the 90s. Is this an era that has a lot of influence for you both, considering both indie rock and electronic dance music were ripping up the charts back then?
The 90’s were such an incredible decade for music in several ways.
On one hand, you had some of the rawest and darkest music ever to be in the zeitgeist. Grunge, alternative, and metal were forces of nature. It’s unreal to me that music that honest and self-aware was able to bulldoze into the mainstream consciousness the way it did.
On the other hand, you had the invention of incredibly futuristic production techniques and styles of music based on those cropping up and pushing the envelope forward. From techno to big beat to triphop to IDM to drum and bass. Sampling and digital recording cracked open new worlds to explore sonically and emotionally.
Industrial is the perfect marriage of these two perspectives. Also, given how many vital new artists are mining that tradition and reinventing it today, it’s safe to say there’s a lot of lifeblood left and territory to explore.
The second single “New Blood” could not be more different, with that haunting guitar and mournful attitude, lit up brilliantly by the synths. The track definitely has a more gothy/darkwave vibe, so is it a vampire thing or a metaphor for finding connection in the world?
New Blood is probably the most straightforward and direct song on the record. It was written about livewire desire, wanting to find someone to have an explosive romance with to shake you both out of the doldrums of stagnancy and mundanity of everyday life. The vampire metaphor fit like a lace glove.
PHOTOS BY TORI MCGRAW
The video for “New Blood” is pretty lush as well, so what was the thought behind it and was it intentional to shoot it in black and white film noir style?
We worked with the awesome director Brendan McGowanknowledge of old monster movies as well as silent film shooting techniques and aesthetics. It was his idea to go with black and white as well as use subtitles and an antiquated aspect ratio to evoke the shadowy atmosphere of the early days of horror film.
It was definitely a conscious choice to have Damage Me be super cyberpunk and New Blood to be the total opposite. It’s fun to try and give people whiplash.
Is there an overriding theme for the album or a flow?
Simply put, a “Damaged Dream” is what you’re left with when the ideals you hold shatter. Cruel reality brings the hammer down on the purity of innocence, joy, youth, love, energy, creativity, optimism…
But while the Dream is Damaged, it is not totally destroyed. In fact, desperate times call for desperate measures, and you can use the longing spark deep within you as fuel to wage war against the negative forces pulling you down. You can reject nihilism and strive to reclaim your agency and meaning in a chaotic world.
Do you have a favorite track off the album and if so why?
Bloodrush is probably my favorite because it accomplishes everything I want a Heavy Halo song to be: melodic, melancholic, driving, romantic, aggressive with a marriage of synths, drum machines, guitars and orchestral choir samples blended beyond recognition.
Please tell us about the new remix you have done for the man with the angelic vocals, Andy Bell (Erasure) and how you have put your spin onto it?
We were honored to be asked to remix “Godspell” from Andy Bell’s new album Ten Crowns. We had to finish it within 3 days after getting home from our summer tour with Light Asylum. After sleeping for a solid 24 hours after getting home, we got right to work. The song was already really interesting melodically and lyrically and Andy Bell’s vocals are otherworldly so it was hugely inspiring to work on.
The lyrics are laced with castigating vitriol and disdain for grifters and selfish hangers-on. We tried to echo this venom in the instrumental we created and up the darkness. Musically it was also really cool to reharmonize Andy’s melody with mysterious chord progressions.
Talking of remixes, you have done quite a few for other artists, including one small band called Duran Duran. What is it like having other musicians trusting you with their baby and do you find joy in tinkering with tracks that are not yours?
Gosteffects has more experience with this as he is a mixing and mastering engineer by trade. Living together I watch him help countless artists discover their voice and get to the finish line with singles, albums, and dance mixes. When he works with already established artists it’s endlessly inspiring to see how he brings a different angle to their work.
You live and record in a converted 19th century hospital. I am curious how you managed to find such a cool place to occupy and do you think it influences your music and mood?
It is a pretty classic New York City story. The building was a historic Jewish hospital built in the 1800’s. If you were born in Brooklyn at that time it was probably in this building. Albert Einstein was also treated here in a life saving procedure where they wrapped part of his brain in cellophane. It worked and he lived another 5 years.
This neighborhood we live in was plagued with race riots in the 1990s around when the hospital was closed down. The laundromat in the basement was the morgue. The super of the building told me when they took over the building a body was left in the basement. Apparently the city or whoever owned it before just completely abandoned the building. That’s how bad it was here at the time. He said he just told people in the neighborhood to come take the computers and beds and everything.
The biggest influence the building has on us is more pragmatic than supernatural. Since we have 2 studio rooms in our apartment it makes it very easy to work on different aspects of tracks at the same time.
The next burning question is do you share your residence with ghostly types, and if so, what have you seen or heard?
Honestly, if there are spirits lingering around here, they seem to have good vibes. Being a hospital, maybe the doctors and nurses did a valiant job caring for the patients. If anything we are more angry and disturbed than the poltergeists…
Heavy Halo is now on the Silent Pendulum Records label. Do you find them a better fit for the band and how did you end up signing to them?
Silent Pendulum is an awesome NYC-based label run by musicians, for musicians. We ended up working with them because our band and their label are deeply ingrained in the Brooklyn underground music and art scene. The modern world tries to convince you that any creative endeavor can be accomplished over the internet, but there’s nothing quite like hashing out projects face-to-face.
What musicians or acts were your original influences?
Early in our friendship I was living in Silverlake in LA and Gosteffects was visiting and checking out the beach at Santa Monica. I drove to pick him up and it took FIVE HOURS to get there and back. In that time we listened to the same scratched Smashing Pumpkins and NIN cd’s on repeat along with some futuristic club shit like Rustie, DBridge, and Dark0. I believe the genesis of our sound formed through that arduous ordeal.
Who do you listen to now and is there anyone out there you think people should really check out?
As a side quest from Heavy Halo, I play guitar in a band called Coatie Pop. We toured with Pixel Grip and Patriarchy, both incredible bands that dropped banger albums this year, check them out!
Last question, which you don’t have to answer… If you could dig up any famous person, musician, artist, poet, writer etc, and Onyx could reanimate them for a conversation, who would you pick?
I would pick Carl Jung, his theories on the shadow self and being possessed by ”creative illness” are so deep and ahead of their time. He was a real innovator and fearless creator. In pursuit of his unique ideas he went against his mentor Sigmund Freud’s theories and was ostracized from the psychology community at large. But he won out and received recognition in the end. A true artist.
Onyx Music Reviews 