Parisian, ManuH’s darkwave project, Distance H, has released the next single, “Reason To Rush“. In line with their previous singles, which feature a female singer, this time they have Cuban born and French based Liset Alea, gracing their track.
Alea’s dulcet tones are warm and inviting, like a lover’s breath, skipping over bare skin, drawing you into promise of more. The electronics are running there, besides the vocals, with the electric guitar breaking through, respectfully and even hauntingly in the background.
This is definitely music to zone out with, escaping the humdrum of regular life. Alea’s voice and lyrics are both soothing and inviting, coupled with ManuH’s music, it all becomes sensuous and a “Reason To Rush“.
It seems The Bellwether Syndicate, lead by William Faith and Sarah Rose Faith, is teasing us again with another single off the soon to be released debut album, Vestige & Vigil. “Beacons” was released on the 2nd of December, on the Sett Records / Nexilis Records labels.
PHOTO BY DAVID STAUDACHER
Stabbing, deathrock styled guitars, combined with the low tidal tow tone of William Faith‘s singing and surging swells of vocals in the chorus, make for a rollicking track of nautical proportions.
In times long past, one’s kith and kin would create bonfires to lead you safely home in the worst weather. It is that premise that loved ones, family and friends are the “Beacons” guiding us to our safe havens…. even in the darkest of times when nothing else makes sense. It is truly a lovely sentiment, wrapped up in a majestic gothic guitar laden track of mercurial proportions, from The Bellwether Syndicate.
Covid decimated the music festival scene, around the world for 2020, 2021 and a good chunk of 2022. Things are coming back to normal and in fact, you can add a new festival to endeavour to attend. Dark Force Fest will kick off in 2023, over three days, March 31st to April 2nd, in New Jersey, USA.
The event is being run by VampireFreaks, at the Sheraton Hotel, in Parsippany and this is not the first time the venue has been used by the VF crew. The hotel was built like a castle, including crenulations (just in case you find yourself in a siege situation with all those goths).
There will be over 100 vendors, to buy things that make your little dark heart happy, clubs, costume competitions and sideshow performances. However, the most important thing is the music… there will be 30 plus bands/artists ranging from darkwave through to industrial. A chance to see pioneers such as Das Ich and Suicide Commando, big hitters Combichrist, Solar Fake, HEALTH, EmpathyTest and ACTORS plus brilliant acts like MORIS BLAK, Third Realm, Bootsblack and Rabbit Junk.
That is a whole lot of music and an amazing line up, so you are spoilt for choice. As the inaugural show, you want to be able to say you were there for the first ever…. unlike myself, stuck in another country, half way around the world, who will have to live vicariously through others, and the buckets of fun they are having. (Insert gothic weeping).
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 “StringOf 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“.
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.
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 PaleAnd 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.
Knock twice, your fate sealed, A CloudOf 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“.
It can’t rain all the time but sometimes it “Feels Like Rain” which also happens to be the Signia Alpha single, released on the 11th of November. The band is made up of singer/lyricist Harris (yes just one name like Prince), multi instrumentalist composer Matt Webster (drums, guitar), flaunting his flute style is Chris Walsh, along with jazz master Keith Jafrate on sax and some bloke called Paul Gray who normally plays bass in some kitch band called The Damned.
Every time I have listened to this, I think Paisley Park, as in the 60s. Could be the use of the flute or the happy go lucky vibe of the music, though not all is as it seems. Lyrically it is about poverty and how it sucks away all until you only live under a constant weight and greyness, which is not living.
The Bradford area is in the North of England and since the industrial revolution, suffered high levels of poverty and unemployment. A breeding ground for musicians who are great storeytellers. “Feels Like Rain” rolls along just like the days do but with a social concious.
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 NickCave, 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.
Need an injection of gothic rock to perk up your dark soul? Then the debut track “DarkenedEyes” 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 TurnsBlue, 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.
Onyx Music Reviews 