Minneapolis based band, autumn, have been honing their post-punk music since their three member inception back in 1994. JuliePlante (vocals), NeilMcKay (guitars/programming) and JeffLeyda (bass) released their new single “catacombs,” in May, with WilliamFaith (BellwetherSyndicate) recording, mixing, mastering and producing at 13Studio. This track is off the new soon to be released album, songs about dying, out on SettRecords.
There is something warm and inviting in the tone of the guitars, rich and deep. JuliePlante is quite mesmerising as their lead singer and she sings you a song of love but in the end everything dies, and it all feels so fleeting. Sometimes memory is all we have and that we live on in the memories of others..
“This song really hits on many of the big themes still circulating in our lives right now, but it really came together during the COVID lockdown time. I knew my dad was nearing the end of his life, and I was finding myself really trying to make my peace with this fragile world and my own limited time in it. I was also really dealing with solitude in a way I hadn’t ever before: recognizing that we are each born alone and will ultimately die alone, and yet we are never alone… Much of the video footage was shot up north in the woods in the coldest part of winter, and that too felt right to me. The starkness of a northern winter landscape has always spoken volumes to me of the thin line between life and death.” – Plante
The music video is beautifully shot by Faith, between a snow laden forest and the group playing together. Bones might reside in “catacombs,” but those remains hold stories of lives with great loves and this track is genuinely a lovely gothic ode to life from autumn.
When creating music, is the artist doing it for themselves to induce joy or for the audience, who may not be so receptive or critical? The latest track from Melbourne’s Velatine delves into this quagmire, delightfully called “FCKYOUALL,” out on the SpookyRecords label.
This is not some punk song, as this is doom coming to get you with death tolling bells and Lockwood is joined on vocals by BarbDwyer. There is a more industrial tone to the electronics and indeed the chorus is a resounding ‘fuckyouall.’
The commentary of the lyrics is about the toll of being an artistic type in the alternative genre, where it can be a thankless slog to gain recognition, often leading to mental health issues, then relying on substances like alcohol and drugs to get that kick. This is a much darker and harsher sound for Velatine, if that is possible for a goth project, and it is accompanied by a music video, shot in black and white by MarkBakaitis , as the duo stalk through the night-time streets of Melbourne with no fucks given. And honestly, I think we all need to occasionally let off steam and say “FCKYOUALL.”
Late at night, when all are asleep, and yet slumber escapes you…. do you hear it? Noises from under the bed, or is it the cupboard or down the hall? Maybe, you are about to “MeetMrScratch,” which coincidently is the new video for the single from SinisterFate, the shock rock five piece unit, based in Chicago.
Häxan, the Swedish silent horror movie from 1922, is the setting for the video, where the band has been grafted into the the story of medieval witchcraft and terror. Band members, DavidBates (vocals), NoelDivad (guitar), LeoGarcia (guitar), TheOmen (bass), and DK (drums) seem to play the roles of ghastly beings who are watching and taunting the religious protagonists, while the music heightens the paranormal tension, in that sassy theatrical way.
In the milieu of such artists as RobZombie and Wednesday13, it has to be said that horror inspired rock is very appealing, especially with its tongue in cheek sense of humour, which definitely is there in spades when watching the music video. Basically it is good old fashioned fun, enhanced by a guitar fuelled track, where one must be careful or encounter the SinisterFate and “MeetMisterScratch.”
Swedish label ProgressProductions have dropped the new ABUNEIN single “Unwanted.” This is the darkwave band’s first single off their soon to be released third album.
The quick build up to the guitar and vocals, is like a release of dopamine to the system. The guitar work is darker and oppressive, especially when joined by the swirling winter soundscape synths, painting a bleak picture, with the vocals as the focal. Those vocals are beautiful and yet ooze a icy quality.
The beginning of this track became well ensconced in my head for quite a while, and in the back of your brain you can hear those sultry vocals just making your day a little more sexier. ABUNEIN have definitely make “Unwanted” a track to dance your little dark hearts out.
Those Norwegian lads Mayflower Madame are back with a new single “A Foretold Ecstasy,” out on the label NightCultRecords. Even better is the fact that this single heralds the release of their third album. Things to look forward to from Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitars, bass), Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums) and Kenneth Eknes (synth).
Bring on the post-punk goodness with those deep bass lines, while the synths sweep through like a cold breeze across a lost soul, with the warmth only found in the chiming guitar. The vocals are smoothly aloof and lost in the distress of the character portrayed.
“AForetoldEcstasy” could be about the act of sex being the only thing that brings the main character any modicum of pleasure which seems to be very fleeting, while everything else in grey and pointless. Whatever it is about, the music is beautifully elegant and atmospheric, and ultimately, MayflowerMadame are wonderful to listen to.
A hex is a spell or a charm, bestowed by a person that might otherwise be called a witch. MargotDay is Metamorph and March saw the release of the new album HEX on DistortionRecords. 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 WastelandWitchRMX, with re-imaginings by SilverWalks 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 MargotDay 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…..
DollyDagger 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 JesseMcInturff and producer LouieDiller.
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 DollyDagger’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.
The new album Glimmer came out in April, but right now I am going to drag your attention to LunarPaths’ 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.
LunarPaths 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 LunarPaths.
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 SaccharineUnderground. JeremyMoore (Thee Rise Ov Sadistic Youth, Zero Swann, Garozde) started Zabus in 2023, joined by fellow musicians Peter Hallock (Garozde), AlkaneShimizu (ZeroSwann) and, for this album, JeroenAchterburg. By the way, is it just me or is the cover channelling NewOrder’sMovement?
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 “BurstOppression,” 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 IanAstbury 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 “TopographyOfIconoclast” 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 EinstürzendeNeubauten and it just blows your mind.
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 AlexBurchell (drums), TonyLumsden (bass) and BrettLemmon (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.”
Onyx Music Reviews 