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Brisbane based, gothic band, Sacred Hearts have been gaining a solid following, and released the newest single “Catholic Guilt“. The Meanjin (Brisbane) trio, however, doing something a little different. Two singles, same track but done in two different styles. Nice to see Jed A. Walters (Chiffon Magnifique) doing their production as well as the talented Kyle Hallam (Doggie Heaven) .

Whom does the bells toll for? That drum machine just pops and the guitars kind of roll in light noisy motes that drown your ears in beautiful chiming. The vocals are so vibrant and in a way angelic, amidst the churning, jangling guitars.

Version two is far more what is on the slab in the laboratory style of deathrock with those hazed out guitars. The angst oozes forward, staining the air, the vocals venomous in their disgust. The Lord’s Prayer that they have used, has become a cultish chant for the disenchanted.

I get where lead singer, June, is coming from, having been in the Catholic school system. They use the religion to scare you and control you. You are being judged, if not worthy then you will go to Hell and I remember at school, being told sex was for procreation only and not for enjoyment. Yeah, let’s not even get into the creepy stuff with the priests. At some point you either stay with that stuff or you walk away. Maybe that just added to the way we turned out but it makes for interesting conversation and, indeed, topic for a single, where Sacred Hearts are stretching those dark wings and pushing their sound into new and varied territory. I think they are only going to get better and “Catholic Guilt 1 & II” are pretty damn hot.

Catholic Guilt | Sacred Hearts (bandcamp.com)

Catholic Guilt II | Sacred Hearts (bandcamp.com)

Sacred Hearts | Facebook

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There is nothing better than introducing new music, especially when it gives you tingles down the spine. Connecticut based Jayson Munro and George Moore are goth rock/post-punk band, Midnight Psychic and their debut single is “String Of Fate“, released on the 16th of November.

There is that beautiful bass, along side the skittering guitar, inspired by Bauhaus, in the beginning of “String Of Fate“. The vocals are smooth and velvet, all the while recounting the many varied ways people past away in quite ignominious tragedies. Striking chords and sweet, mournful singing that do indeed induce those very tingles down the spine.

You know a song is either really good or really bad when it gets stuck in your head. I am glad to say that “String Of Fate” is brilliant and quite acceptable rattling around in the old noggin. It throws you back in time and the track would have fitted nicely into the gothic 80s UK scene, with the lovely guitar flourishes and unhurried, wonderful vocals. The Midnight Psychic is in session and they have foreseen your “String Of Fate“.

String of Fate | midnight psychic (bandcamp.com)

Midnight psychic | Facebook

https://instagram.com/midnight.psychic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

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In South Carolina, if you listen carefully, not all is banjo music. The gothic/deathrock explosive power of Orcus Nullify is back baby, with a new single, “All The Way“, released on the 11th of November.

From the drums through to the guitars, this is all Nullify. The guitars soar and Bruce’s vocals derisive of the old guard, the far right in their inability to accept anything other than their own narrow view and that if they aren’t right then it should all be left to crumble into anarchy. Discordant deathrock from Orcus Nullify with a message and a mosh worthy chorus.

https://orcusnullify.bandcamp.com/track/all-the-way-2

https://www.facebook.com/onullify

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In the City of Ekaterinburg, you will find gothic rockers, Raven Said, and October saw their new EP, Chants To Dissolve released by Moon Coil Media, plus they had the very talented Pete Burns (Kill Shelter) on mastering. Raven Said are Andrey Agapitov (vocals, guitar, bass, acoustic guitar) and Maria Agapitova (piano, synth, percussion).

The first track has a very interesting pulsating marrying of almost techno beats and gothic rock. There are sparkling synths with flourishing jangly guitar in “A Flowering And A Flattering“.”Transparent Sorrow” features the beautifully sensual vocals of Aeleth Kaven from La Scaltra, so very light and angelic in stark contrast to Agapitov’s deeper tones. This track reminded me of the bands coming out in the second goth wave of the early 90s.

Really amazing bass lines wander through “Except My Love For Her (Cold Desire Version)“. I dare you to forget the chorus as it pretty unique and a very sweet way to admit to being very much in love…..in a very goth way. There is such a violent life to “Srendi Vashtar“, from the guitar and the voracious electronics, to the urgently lowkey vocals spurred on by the smashing percussion. The last track is the shimmering “Immersive Waves” with the haunting guitars and vocals. The guitar work is simply delightful, tinkling like broken glass, over and over again.

Music brings us together like virtually nothing else on the planet. It can feed our souls and connect us on such a primal level. Raven Said are creating dark gothic rock that really is like broken glass, fragile and shinny but if you try to take them into your heart, you might slowly die from the way they cut you up…. or not. It is about depths you feel this style of music in your psyche. New and yet familiar to those of us that live our lives in black. Now there are Chants To Dissolve with, so the Raven Said.

Chants to Dissolve | Raven Said (bandcamp.com)

Raven Said | Yekaterinburg | Facebook

Raven Said (@ravensaidband) • Instagram photos and videos

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Italian spectres of darkwave/post-punk, European Ghost, dropped their album, No Sleep, No Peace, No Shelter. Released on the label, Icy Cold Records, on September the 23rd, this is the third album for Cristiano Biondo (vocals, lyrics), Giuseppe Taibi (bass, synths, drum machines) and Mario d’Anelli (guitars, synths), with Pale And Sick (2016) and Collection Of Shadows (2018), the previous albums.

So we begin with “Stars In Heaven“, a buzzing takes your ear, leading you an anxious array of noise and powerful waves of almost rhythmic noise. “Chrematimos” has that wonderful stalwart of post-punk, the plucked bass rumbling away as premonitions are causing mounting reason for concern.

“White Foals” slithers under your skin with the vocals, while the guitars make that same skin shiver in eerie cold happiness. Dreams invade your sleep. Nightmares can ruin a “Good Night“. The music is stalking you like that unseen predator. There is a space like quality to “Hermetic“, sealed away while stars are consumed in loneliness.

Guitars and electronic take turns sparkling in “Cold Lips“, twisting and turning looking for fire, whilst the vocals ring out in the void. The bass holds sway in the title track, “No Peace, No Sleep, No Shelter“, a refection within a reflection, as the guitars wander between the realms of the living, dead and despair. “Living In A Tomb” does not so much feel desolate, so much as there is a longing for the light and that longing is in the vocals and wailing electronics.

Does “The Wind That Comes From Underground” come from some dark place? This track is truly full of some tremendous thumping beats with echoes and demonic clattering, as if the devil were chasing you through a labyrinth. An air of agelessness permeates the “Garden Of Delights“, sonorous and full of promise. A lovely twisting vortex of synths that pushes ever higher. The final track is “Metropolix” with its almost glitch like rhythm and the vocals that conjor images of the movie Metropolis, where everything is cold and metallic, moving with oiled precision.

European Ghost have said that the inspiration for the album comes from the idea of dreams, often meant to be a place of escape but can turn into haunting places of terror, causing apprehension from the very act of sustaining the body and mind. For me, it felt like when dreams and death are inseparable… entering a state where one is prone and open, where sleep is almost another form of impermanent death. No Peace, No Sleep, No Shelter has this wonderful, gritty texture, abrasive, polished by those magical guitars and highlighted by the electronics. They experiment with noise, creating these glorious sonic pieces that make you feel like you are standing on the edge of the void, and vocals plunge you into that void. Get haunted by European Ghost.

No Peace, No Sleep, No Shelter | European Ghost | europeanghost (bandcamp.com)

European Ghost | Facebook

https://m.facebook.com/icycoldrecords/

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Knock twice, your fate sealed, A Cloud Of Ravens does reveal. Indeed, the 11th of November was the date for the release of the second single, “Nature If Artifice“, off the LOST HYMNS album, set to come out on the 24th of February, 2023.

It sucks you in from the beginning with elegant simplicity, from the beats to the build up into vocals. That guitar in the background like a warning siren, with the very deliberate heavy keyboard chords begging you to give them your attention. The vocals sombrely remind you that not all is well in the world.

The video alludes to past mistakes of humans only in the last century and yet maybe A Cloud Of Ravens is also tying to point out that we are making those mistakes again, though even if you aren’t a history buff, the music is brilliant. This is the “Nature Of Artifice“.

https://acloudofravens.bandcamp.com/track/nature-of-artifice-3

https://m.facebook.com/acloudofravens/

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Garrett Cooper is a musician who hails from South Australia. We had all had enough of 2021, but Cooper decided to give himself the goal of writing one song a month and putting it up on Bandcamp from November. He named the project Brave Mistakes, which may or may not have been hinting at how he felt about the task ahead. Now, Brave Mistakes is not the first to do the one song a month challenge, but one must remember that Cooper started this with a change from his usual harder rock style.

And now we are in November 2022. Single number twelve is here…. or is it? There seems to be two singles in the form of the tracks “Can’t Fear” and “The Goon“, which make up a trilogy of songs called Shadow Pals and Brave Mistakes is no longer a solo project, but now a fully fledged band. The sound has filled out with those jangly guitars tumbling beautifully over each other and Cooper’s vocals have gotten stronger each track, dare I say giving Chris Isaak a run for his money.

Obviously not content on just one song for this month, we are going out with a bang. On Bandcamp you will also find a new rendition of “Charlotte Street“, which was the first to kick everything off and it has been stripped down, full of overwhelming emotion. I was actually surprised to also see the release of a cover of one of my most favourite bands of all time. The Church, for me are the epitome of superb composition, poetic lyrics and more cool than the Arctic (and good grief they were so hot looking in their paisley and winkle pickers). The cover of “Under The Milky Way” kind of blew my mind and in all honesty, I actually cried a little.

Over all, the general ambience is dark and moody, with definite overtones of country music, which gives Brave Mistakes a quintessentially Australian sound. The music follows in the footsteps of such acts as stalwart Nick Cave, rockers Beasts Of Bourbon, The Johnny’s or the wonderful and sadly missed Triffids. It is music that speaks of longing, loneliness and separation in a land both expansive and ancient, where one can lose themselves in the terrain or simply in your own head. Southern Australian gothic or dark country? Maybe it defies pigeon holing but it is terrific rock music no matter how you look at it. Brave Mistakes sometimes pay off.

Music | Brave Mistakes (bandcamp.com)

Brave Mistakes | Adelaide SA | Facebook

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From County Cork, in Ireland, we have the darkwave act, Arctic Lights with their new single “Belong“, released on November the 4th. Liam O’Callaghan (vocals, guitar) and Edward Butt (bass guitar)are the duo that are the nucleus of Arctic Lights, with Max Mac joining them on drums.

Low vocals greet your ears with acoustic accompaniment of a guitar, though all this is an illusion as the electronics break through. There is a sonic component, a see saw between vocals, synths and guitar that is quite mesmerising.

Darkwave with that shoegaze wall of sound and the sublime singing that creates a wonderfully textured track about the very human desire to be apart of a relationship of some description. Come and “Belong” with Arctic Lights.

https://arcticlights.bandcamp.com/track/belong

https://m.facebook.com/ArcticLightsCork

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When things go bump in the night, you are sure to get music to remind you not all is known or seen. October 31st or All Hallows Eve, saw the new EP, Avernus, be unleashed by In Tenebris, upon the world while the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. This is the more ambient product of German electronic musician, Sebastian Sünkler, whom is better know for his power noise project, STAHLSCHLAG.

Something unnatural this way comes, in the form of an ancient “Relic“. The synths waver in high pitch warning and the clash of tones signal there is something that feeds on the darkness, an aberration has become unbound. Sinister electronic overtones, coalesce with slow rhythmic beats… a heartbeat from a demonic being, in the cathodic noise, casting a foreboding shadow for this is the “Dynastic Cult“.

The beginning of “Traits” is almost transcendental, though almost immediately drenched in a claustrophobic pall of dank noises. The ringing, instead of being enlightening, joins the overbearing build up of portent. The final track is “Iconoclast” and the beast waits, no longer in torpor, as the music oozes with sharp edges, stalking so that you can almost feel the fetid breath on the back of your neck, though nothing can be seen through the mists. How long do you have?

Avernus strikes a chord somewhere in your brain that stores your animal ability to sense danger. Something dark and threatening lurks within, nothing like us and with evil intent. The music conjures a myriad of feelings and visions, like a good horror movie, never showing you the monster but rather letting your imagination run away with the subtle suggestion simply in the tone or noises within each track. And each listen will reveal more than you previously heard. Sünkler’s famous crunch is bleeding through a little into this EP, giving the ambient tracks a rather delightful texture and most definitely increasing the menace.

Avernus | In Tenebris | STAHLSCHLAG (bandcamp.com)

In Tenebris | Facebook

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Need an injection of gothic rock to perk up your dark soul? Then the debut track “Darkened Eyes” from st///ll might stoke the fires. The three members are scattered between the UK and Ireland but have the common love for the post-punk genre.

The drum machine starts pistoning away, joined by the chiming out guitar, before the Ian Curtis like vocals invade your concious. Then you are plunged into a sonic sweetness, due to the bass being there, ramping up the tension and dueling the lead guitar. It’s a bit like being transported back to the early 80s.

I think there is not only a love here for Joy Division but I can also hear Pink Turns Blue, which is tangible in both the vocals and guitar. Given a chance, “Darkened Eyes” could easily become a gothic dance floor anthem. There is no excuse for not popping off to Bandcamp to secure this little beauty as it is name your price, for a seriously strong debut track from st///ll.

https://still6.bandcamp.com/track/darkened-eyes

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083423207378