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EPISODE NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS:
This episode begins on a sad, but respectful, note. Earlier this week, Nick Cave's 15-year-old son Arthur was killed in a fall from a cliff. "The Weeping Song" seemed perhaps a little too fitting, but it was the only way I could send my sympathies, so I chose to do so.
Once past that bit of bad news, the first full set begins with our first taste of the forthcoming Lycia album, A Line That Connects (courtesy of a stream from Decibel Magazine's website). The song gets better with each listen, and definitely harkens back to the classic sound that put the band on the map. You will soon be able to pre-order the album on the Handmade Birds site.
After a personal classic from the criminally underrated Black Ice, the set travels the globe to bring you fresh music, starting with a new German band called Transylvania. Not much is known about the band, but their sound offers a nice, ethereal, goth/deathrock vibe. The UK's Red Sun Revival follows with a track from their new faithfully-goth-rock album, Identities, followed by the first band to grace the show from Belarus, the curiously-named Another Lips, with an alternatingly catchy-then-suffocating post-punk piece from their new EP Грязь.
The first set closes with a moment of celebration for this week's 30th anniversary of the release of the classic Phantasmagoria album from The Damned. The album marked the band's most outwardly gothic sound, and is often remembered for its iconic album cover, which coincidentally features model Susie Bick, who would later marry Nick Cave. Small world.
The second set begins with a pair of songs played in tribute to Simon Manning, founding member of the bands Children on Stun and Grooving In Green, who passed away last week. I never knew the man, but he wrote some infectious goth rock that hit me in my formative years, and I salute him for that. The set continues with a pair of classics from the vault, before heading into some recent goth/punk fusion from Iceland's Börn, who give us a taste of their 2014 self-titled album. The set wraps up with new music from Seattle's Arcane, whose demo offers a unique take on anarcho/peace-punk.
The darkwave section of this episode is rife with new releases and bands, beginning with a taste of the new Lebanon Hanover album, Besides the Abyss, which leads into a track from fellow Germans Keluar, taken from their new EP, Panguna. Meanwhile, back in the States, we finally get caught up in last year's Floods EP from Brooklyn's Aeon Rings (formerly heard on this show as Night Vision), before getting a taste of the much-talked-about new Los Angeles band, Drab Majesty. The first video from their Careless album can be seen here, paired with an interview about the project's visual component.
The darkwave crashes with the powerful and emotionally challenging title track from the new Ego Likeness album, When the Wolves Return. A pensive, slowly-building song may seem an odd choice for a lead single, but it shows what sets this band apart from their peers; a weakness that gave them strength. Watch the equally stark video for the song here.
The Dark metal portion of the show begins gradually, teasing in with two acts that flirt, to varying degrees, with the heavier side of the dark music spectrum. First up is a song from the new Nostalgist album, Of Loves and Days Ago. The Seattle band's sound is not easily pegged, evoking post-punk notes of bands like Lowlife, mixing in '90s alternative rock like The Smashing Pumpkins or Hum, getting noisy with some shoegaze, and rounding it out with post-metallic influences like Agalloch. Overall, it's an interesting mix. Check it out here.
Next up is a Philadelphia band called Cape of Bats, whose Ash Black Autumn EP mixes punk, deathrock, and black metal influences, with interesting results. We then take a dip in the late-'90s golden era of dark metal, from which you'll hear a couple of classics, along with some new music from Barshasketh -- who are not actually from the '90s, but my ears and memory were willingly fooled by the sound of their new album, Ophidian Henosis. Drudkh closes the set with a deeper cut from their latest album, A Furrow Cut Short.
Finland's elder statesmen of funeral doom, Skepticism, then step in to close the show with a track from their brand new album, Ordeal. Interestingly, the band chose to record this album completely live, before an audience, in one shot -- and the results pay off, with a sound that seems as large as they were when I had the distinct pleasure of seeing them with my own eyes.
All of that, PLUS: A deeper cut from Retro Promenade's "Carpenter" tribute, this time from the band Hide & Sequence; New Dark Ambient music from Italy's Enmarta and France's L'Enfant De La Forêt; Selections from the '70s Horror, post-punk, darkwave, and goth vaults; and more.
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PLAYLIST BEGINS HERE
Format: Band Name - Song Title [Album Title, Year]
(each band name is also a website link)
"Out ov the Coffin" w/ Ichabod
Show recorded on: July 17th, 2015
Opening Theme:
Elliot Goldenthal - Libera Me [from "Interview with the Vampire" (soundtrack), 1994]
Elliot Goldenthal - Libera Me [from "Interview with the Vampire" (soundtrack), 1994]
Enmarta - Aesthetics [Sea of Black, 2015]
Lycia - Monday Is Here [A Line That Connects, 2015]
Black Ice - In the Dark [Myopia, 2007]
Transylvania - No Return [demo, 2015]
Red Sun Revival - Four Walls [Identities, 2015]
Another Lips - Самозащита [EP Грязь, 2015]
The Damned - Street of Dreams [Phantasmagoria, 1985]
Disasterpeace - Playpen ["It Follows" (soundtrack) 2014]
Children on Stun - Sidelined [Tourniquets Of Loves Desire, 1994]
Grooving In Green - Stranglehold [Strangelhold, 2012]
Twisted Nerve - Séance [Séance, 1984]
Marquee Moon - Prince of Darkness [Beyond the Pale, 1985]
Börn - Friður í helvíti [Börn, 2014]
Arcane - Sleepless Paralysis [demo 2014]
Hide & Sequence - Ghosts ["Carpenter" (comp.) 2015]
Lebanon Hanover - Chimerical [Besides the Abyss, 2015]
Keluar - Panguna [Panguna, 2015]
Aeon Rings - No More Pain [Floods, 2014]
Drab Majesty - The Heiress [Careless, 2015]
Diary of Dreams - War on a Meadow [Cholymelan, 1994]
Ego Likeness - When the Wolves Return [When the Wolves Return, 2015]
L'Enfant De La Forêt - Black Figures [Abraxas, 2015]
Nostalgist - The Derelict [Of Loves and Days Ago, 2015]
Cape of Bats - Death Born King [Ash Black Autumn, 2014]
Rotting Christ - Out of Spirits [A Dead Poem, 1997]
Barshasketh - II [Ophidian Henosis, 2015]
Morgion - Canticle [Solinari, 1999]
Drudkh - Cursed Sons II [A Furrow Cut Short, 2015]
Pierre Raph - Francoise Chante ("The Iron Rose") ["The Films of Jean Rollin" (comp.) 1994]
Skepticism - Closing Music [Ordeal, 2015]
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