We’re off to see the Sisters, the guttural Sisters of goth! Yep, the Senior Staff will be in attendance tonight as Doktor Avalanche’s travelling medicine show comes through Vancouver, bringing with it all of the decades-old questions about the quality of the Sisters of Mercy as a touring entity and of the troves of still unreleased new music which will likely make up the majority of the set. We’ll likely have some thoughts on this week’s podcast, but until then we’re keeping our fingers crossed for “Marian” and “Emma”.
Soft Vein, contemplating
Chameleons, “Nostalgia”
Wrestling with childhood experiences through the eyes of adulthood was a pillar of strength for The Chameleons in their original incarnation, and so the reformed band returning to some of its earliest, pre-Script Of The Bridge material for a new EP seems fitting, especially when you’ve got a reflective tune like “Nostalgia” to use as a calling card. LP of new material Arctic Moon is still on the horizon, but until then the Tomorrow Remember Yesterday is giving us some beautiful Billy Pilgrim-esque time slips.
SDH, “Do I Look Like I’m Laughing (MVTANT remix)”
Interesting news last week as it was revealed that SDH, an act we’ve followed closely for a few years had signed to Artoffact Records. The announcement came with a fresh remix of “Do I Look Like I’m Laughing” by MVTANT, taking the original darkwave cut into some funky body music territory, but without losing its moody, continental charm. The end result, as you can hear below, has a kind of 12″ dub charm to it, like a Razormaid remix from that service’s golden era, death disco for underground dancefloors.
Soft Vein, “God Whispers”
Speaking of Artoffact, the label will be releasing the sophomore LP from California’s Soft Vein Through Blinds for January of 2025. Like the preceding record, there’s a lot of modern electro-darkwave going on with the teaser single “God Whispers”, requisite minimalism and all, but we’re hearing much of the EBM and electro influences at play here in the bassline and drum interplay. One notable aspect of the track is the increasingly worked up vocal as it heads towards its conclusion, giving the otherwise very structured track some dangerous, slightly unhinged energy to play off of.
Vision Video, “Dead Gods”
Big goth rock moves from Vision Video, who have remained a major touring presence in the North American scene over the last few years. A cut like “Dead Gods” really does tie them directly into the musical traditions that Dusty Gannon has become an internet face for; between his tremendous vocal performance and the cut’s excellent use of spooky keys and haunted house reverbs, there’s just a super solid core of second wave-styled goth rock under the hood of the track. Listen to that guitar arpeggio, and that busy cymbal-work on the drum track. This is the good stuff.
Boar Alarm, “Stepping On Ants”
Between fresh Analfabetism material and a whole new death industrial/ambient collaboration it’s been a busy back half of the year for Fredrik Djurfeldt, but he’s still not done. Representing the unrelenting approach to industrial and EBM which birthed Severe Illusion, his Boar Alarm solo project’s new LP is packed with brutal, hypnotic loop and grind style material like this cut.
Yeun Elez, “La croix des cinq chemins”
Linking neofolk, dungeon synth, and dark ambient together, the first tasters of the new tape from Hoel Von Helvet’s Yeun Elez project evoke the misty and marshy landscapes of rural France which the project’s title refers to, even if you didn’t spend your youth traipsing through them as Von Helvet did. His earlier work as Techno Thriller had a much more industrial cast, but this shift towards the mystic has been in the works at least since 2020’s Decameron.
