Reviews
11/XI/00
|
BELBORN "Belborn" / (p)00 World Serpent Distribution
Have you noticed that all interesting young neo-folk/dark folk bands appear
mostly in Germany? It seems that British dark folk bastion - World Serpent
Distribution - has already noticed the way the wind blows. Not long ago,
Germans were rare guests there, but times change and here's another
WSD-release of a German band. BELBORN is a duo from Germany, comprising
Holger F. and Susanne H. I don't know how to explain the fact that BELBORN
decided to walk their own way sticking to neo-folk genre, adding modern
electronic influences to this rather conservative style - but please, don't
think it's some synth-pop or electro - if it were so, I wouldn't dare call
their style "neo-folk". In fact, the electronic origin is realized mostly in
electronic military percussion, the artificial sound of which is
deliberately emphasized, but perceived adequately. In some tracks BELBORN
stepped further and sweetened their bravura neo-folk by electronic
instruments (ala 80's) - mostly by melodic keyboards. To my mind their
experiment succeeded - luckily BELBORN's sense of measure didn't fail them
and their electronic dark folk sounds moderate enough and not at all
annoying. No doubt, dark folk purists will claim band's musical approach to
be "not serious", but does it make any difference, if music has electronic
or live basis? The point is that music must be good and BELBORN didn't
disappoint me - their compositions having normal pathos ratio, melodic
keyboards and rather effective male vocals (lyrics in German) make good
impression. At any rate one can undoubtedly state they possess originality
and if dark folk aesthetics is close to you, if you are not afraid of sound
experiments, I dare recommend this disc to you.
coroner
BELTANE "The Fire of Becoming" / (p)00 Definitive
I got used to dark shades of goth/industrial CDs and to gothic/calligraphic
fonts on their covers. And I was rather alerted by the yellow/red spectre,
more often attributed to pop/techno dance aestethics. Strangely, the music
turned to be quite pleasant melodic gothic rock with female vocals - a
bright example of how the design of the CD goes in contradiction with its
contents. Beltane is a bright representative of Australian goth scene. It's
not a secret the goth scene of this continent is very strong and original,
even though it's mostly local and not widely known in Europe. The general
style, as I have already mentioned, is gothic rock. There are tracks with
more mainstream sound, there are more electronic/new age ones, but most of
them are close to English gothic rock in the vein of Inkubus Sukkubus or Die
Laughing. The specific feature of Beltane is three (!) female vocalists.
Frankly speaking, their voices sound rather alike and there's not much of a
contrast between them. Still, such attention to female voice is pleasant.
Although all main musical work was carried out by Paul Handley, the leader
of the band, who at the same time does programming and synths and plays
bass, thanks to lots of female vocals the album turned to be very "female"
and sincere - excellent gothic rock, beautiful and rather original.
coroner
http://users.senet.com.au/~beltane
CLAN OF XYMOX "Live" / (p)00 Pandaimonium
If not take into account German gothic scene, having a tremendous amount of
goth-bands, pretending to the leadership, the sole European leaders are of
course Holland CLAN OF XYMOX. They started their career in the times of the
first wave of gothic music, releasing two excellent albums "Clan of Xymox"
and "Medusa" on 4AD.
Then there was a strange period when the albums were
still released but they could hardly be called interesting and in 1997 their
triumphal return to the gothic scene was marked by "Hidden Faces" album,
which was great indeed and CLAN OF XYMOX became the first of the old gothic
bands to come back. The last year's album "Creatures" proved their star
status, showing that such conservative style as gothic rock still allows to
create something unusual, interesting and original. So the release of the
concert album is a natural continuation of the process - this is the first
official live album of the band for the whole its history. Though I am not
great fan of live discs, I listened to this album with real pleasure. If
this disc contained only songs from the last two albums, it wouldn't be of
particular interest for me - the disc contains the tracks I prefer to listen
on studio albums. Luckily, CLAN OF XYMOX themselves seemed to understand it
and they tried to make this album more interesting - two discs contain 19
songs, the half of which come from the latest period of their activity and
the other half presents song remakes from the first two albums. It seems,
CLAN OF XYMOX are not so fascinated by their works of the beginning of
90's - ""Phoenix", "Twist of Shadows" and "Metamorphosis, because there is
only one track from this period on the disc. The sound is very close to the
last studio works, which is not surprising 'cause it has electronic basis,
and as a whole it sounds like quite a traditional XYMOX's synth-goth
(actually, the honor of creating such direction in gothic music belongs to
them). The album is recorded at concerts of CLAN OF XYMOX in Middle and
South America and before I had known that, I kept on wondering why Ronny
Moorings says "Muchas Gracias" after every song. Excellent album, which
demonstrated, that CLAN OF XYMOX is a perfect live band.
P.S. Besides, the disc contains two clips "Stranger" and "Jasmine & Rose".
coroner
COPH NIA "That Which Remains" / (p)00 Cold Meat Industry
In Sweden everything is OK not only with pop and metal music. For
many years, this has been demonstrated by the main dark-ambient den
of Europe, the Cold Meat Industry label. The majority of
dark-ambient bands at CMI are swedes, and COPH NIA is not an
exception. The bands originated in 1995 by a Aldenon Satorial. At
present, in consists of four people, among who are two girls: a very
rare happening for dark-ambient bands. COPH NIA is an occult unit,
it is perfectly clearly seen and heard. Well, it's a common thing
for CMI and for dark-ambient in general - the title of the band, the
title of the album, the booklet, the lyrics - everything is
penetrated with the ideas and works of the Great Beast, Aleister
Crowly. Spooky telemites from COPH NIA used Crowly's texts with
their music, mainly form the Book of the Law, and although I have
used the term "dark-ambient" very often, its rather symbolical here,
half of the tracks contain lyrics, which isn't really characteristic
of the genre, and although the musical side of the first three songs
is quite dark-ambient (especially good is the song "Opus 77" with
whispering male vocals reading fragments from the Book of the Law),
the fourth track of the CD, "Sanctus", is a bit different. It
started as dark-ambient, with a very spookily sounding Latin text,
but in the middle of it, revealed an acoustic guitar a-la flamenco -
but the general sound scheme wasn't spoilt by that, quite the
opposite, it was very interesting and unusual. The fifth and the
last two tracks are more traditional, very common dark ambient, but
the sixth one, "Our Lady of the Stars" is kinda telemitic ethereal,
certainly with female vocals, without a slightest hint of dark
ambient.
If we should draw parallels to more well-known dark-ambient bands,
the ambient tracks of COPH NIA could be compared to a mixture of
LUSTMORD and SEPHIROTH, and although I do not dare to call their
material original and unusual, with its traditional noise and howls,
but the whole album is listened to very nice, and mostly due to
non-format tracks.
coroner
DIE FORM "Deep Inside" CD-single / (p)00 Trisol
The new single of the cult fetish electro Goths DIE FORM is pilot to
their new album, "Extremum", which is supposed to be released later
this year. Considering the fact that two years have passed since
their latest release, "Duality", this single appealed to my interest
very much. The CD is opened by the title track, "Deep Inside", it
begins with analog sounds, then it slowly transforms into electro
rhythm, more complicated and exciting than "Duality" ones. Eliane
P's vocals go quietly, like one of the instruments, but Philippe
Fichot's part is neither very large, just the words "Deep Inside"
which creates an excellent fetish-gothic-electro hit, aggressive and
impressive. The second track, "Mask Of Noise", is reflects the noise
realm of DIE FORM, which is not appreciated by me: noise and vocal
samples put on an apocalyptic monotonous rhythm. The track is quite
DIE FORM'ish, but it seems to me that such tracks are not their best
spot. The third track is a cover of "Deep Inside" by L'AME
IMMORTELLE - Thomas Rainer did not hesitate, thinking what to do
with the song: just by adding the "L'AME IMMORTELLE copyright"
rhythm the song became a 100% club gothic hit, although now very
original. The last track, "Chronovision", is a cover of a song by
ENTROPY, a project not known to me, but the track surprised me by
its drive, not at all typical of DIE FORM. To what conclusions can I
come after listening to this single? The sound of the new album
might be more aggressive, and the songs will be more dynamic than
"Duality" or "L'ame electrique", and Philippe is supposed to perform
at least a half of all vocals. Of course, we shall see, whether I
was right or wrong, but judging only by the head track, the album is
going to be very interesting.
coroner
http://dieform.assimilation.org
DIVA DESTRUCTION "Passion's Price" / (p)00 Self-released
The laurels of SWITCHBLADE SYMPHONY do not leave lots of goth ladies
in peace; some of them, evidently, the most determined ones, decide
to head for the thorny, yet wonderful area of gothic show-business.
Actually,if a couple of ladies from SWITCHBLADE SYMPHONY managed to
become one of the well-known modern gothic bands, why others should
fall behind them? Examining the CD, I understood that DIVA DESTRUCTION,
at least its outward appearance, is not worse. DIVA DESTRUCTION is two
charming goth girls, quite showy-looking. To be more precise, it's the
nickname of Debra Fogarty, who is responsable for vocals, keys and
programming plus a second lady with a gothic name Severina, just
second vocalist. Though, judging by the site, the line-up of the band
has grown significantly, all the others who helped the girls during the
recording are just guest musicians. My comparison with SWITCHBLADE
SYMPHONY is not just accidental - the music of DIVA DESTRUCTION can be
described as a more expressive and energetic version of SS, though not
of the late dark-trip-wave period, but of the time of "Serpentine
Gallery". Debra creates real "feminine darkwave", not resembling the
music of their colleagues of the opposite sex. The music of
DIVA DESTRUCTION is sensual and emotional, practically all the 13
tracks are real hits. Although, I think that they have more success
with dymanic club goth hits, and middle-tempo tracks are slightly less
interesting. Vocals add some specific charm to the music - both
vocalists are lovely as hell, their voices are sometimes vicious
and vulgar, and sometimes - sad and tender, these changes of mood do
not leave you bored while listening to this splendid CD. The band
definitely has a great future, I am sure their new material will be
even more interesting.
coroner
http://www.divadestruction.com
GOTHIÑA "Night Thoughts" / (p)00 Cruel Moon
Not so long ago we have reviewed a demo recorded by this Italian band named
GOTHICA. In that review I expressed my surprise because the press-release
said their debut CD would be released by Swedish label Cold Meat Industry.
“Foreigners” (not Swedes) are not usually welcome at CMI, and most bands are
more serious and brutal. Later on it turned out that the debut album was
released not by CMI itself, but by its sub-label – Cruel Moon, created as a
“nest” to host more “gothy” European bands. A “warm place” at Cruel Moon has
already been taken by the compatriots of GOTHICA – cult Italian band
ATARAXIA. ATARAXIA is mentioned not just by chance – this name comes to mind
when you start thinking about the bands that produced influence upon the
works of these young Italians. Although, the influence of DEAD CAN DANCE is
evident as well – Alessandra Santovito’s manner of singing is closer to that
of Lisa Gerard. Episodic “oriental” insertions remind us of DEAD CAN DANCE
works as well. From ATARAXIA they inherited exquisite barocco and neo-folk
elements. Even though it’s not so difficult to define vocals that influenced
Alessandra, we cannot blame her for imitating someone – her voice is
wonderful, deep and sensual and her vocal is quite original. In most tracks
female vocal is used, but the second main participant Roberto made his
contribution as well, and when he joins in with Alessandra it’s rather
adequate. Though, several tracks with male vocal sound much worse and it
seems Roberto’s peace of mind is disturbed by the laurels of Brendan Perry.
Evidently, the members of GOTHICA themselves understand that tracks with
male vocal are not brilliant. “Night Thoughts” album is half-based upon the
material from their previous demo “Proserpina”. Seven of its eight tracks
were included in the debut album. The demo produced an effect almost half of
the tracks have male vocal, but these get lost when you listen to a 12-track
CD. As for the general stylistics, it’s something in the vein of dark
ethereal neo-folk. I would recommend it not only to DEAD CAN DANCE and
ATARAXIA worshippers, but to all the people who are into ethereal. GOTHICA
will find it’s place in the row of masterpieces created by STOA, ARCANA and
LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH.
coroner
http://gothicahomepage.cjb.net
O QUAM TRISTIS... "Funerailles des Petits Enfants" / (p)00 Palace Of Worms
For many people "goth" means nothing but serious and gloo my music genre.
It's adequate for most goth bands and styles but there are exceptions as
well. The "gothyness" of this very release leaves no doubt though at the
same time it's characterized by some kind of patologic cheerfullness and
lightness (or, may be, it's just my perverted perception). O QUAM TRISTIS
is a French band, but judging by the names and surnames of its members at
least half of them are of Polish origin. My "unknowledge" of French still
lets me understand the name of the album means " Funeral of Infants" or
something similar. Gregorian chants in latin were taken as the lyrics for
this album - those used during children's funerals. Thorough description has
evidently created associations with some kind of dark ambient? But I have
promised "joy" and lightness. The answer is simple - stylistically it's very
light music, something from synth-goth area. Light-minded and sometimes very
popsy melodies, samples and sounds are combined with male and female vocals,
singing lofty chants. This attempt to "modernize" mediaeval music, creating
something like synth-mediaeval is quite successful and interesting and it
sounds very pleasantly and amusingly, though several years ago there was
another attempt to "electronize" mediaeval. I am speaking of QNTAL. To be
honest, O QUAM TRISTIS ... have to go a long way before they catch up with
QNTAL (as for dynamics, sophistication, atmosphere, playing techniques,
etc.) Though, there are several decent darkwave club hits. As a whole, it's
rather good and interesting release.
coroner
PENITENT "Maestro Beethoven" / (p)00 Memento Mori
According to Karsten Hamre's concept this album should mark a kind of a
turning point of his creative activity. Appeared out of the atmosphere of
primal darkness and cold, with all its depressive hopelessness, Penitent's
colors grew warmer, being gradually encrusted with neo-classicism to finally
embody this term in its direct sense in the frames of the given album.
"Maestro Beethoven" presents a sort of a tribute to famous German composer,
who is spiritual mentor of nearly all modern dark electronic symphonists.
Musically, the difference lies in the arrangements, performed in late
Penitent's traditional manner. Still, there's not a single live sound - all
instruments are sampled and synthesized, many of them are altered beyond
recognition. Everything seems to be complete and is to make an impression of
monumentality, but alas... it definitely lacks something... probably a lack
of modernism which is to be traced not only in absolute sound synthesizing,
but also in more careful work on the parent material. However Karsten
himself might have not had such an intention... It's rather difficult to
predict whether the album becomes another masterpiece or on the contrary,
will be darkened by the shadow of its classical original, though one can say
even now, that it's probably the last time for us to hear Penitent in its
"classical" key. Further works will differ greatly from all that we got used
to - it's somehow clued by the track "On Anothers Sorrow", recorded by
Karsten for the "William Blake" Compilation CD. But on the other hand that
might be a temporal lyrical deviation, for no one knows, what other mad
project the artist is going to undertake...
Stanislav Ivanoff
PULCHER FEMINA "Fallen Angel" / (p)00 Decadance
Italian duo consisting of Roberto Conforti and Anna Consuelo Cerichelli was
founded in 1997, when these two persons got acquainted at some Italian
gothic club. A year later their first cassette demo was released and after
series of live performances the duo signed a contract with newly formed
label Decadance Records to release their full-length album "Fallen Angel".
The given disc, released by Decadance in 2000 is considered a debut for the
band and the label so I think that it's not bad, but one couldn't evade
particular drawbacks, but everything is okay on the whole...
PULCHER FEMINA play electro-goth and it goes to both slow romantic and
faster "dance" tracks, but I should honestly say, none of those are capable
of being called a "club hit" - there's a lack drive. The leading vocals are
male, natural in romantic tracks and distorted in all other energetic ones.
Female appearances are rare and lady Anna's vocals can't be called
expressive - just ordinary background vocals, not marked by some specific
traits. As to the music itself, the thing that I call "naive synthesizers"
immediately leap to the eye (...to the ear) and that occurs when the sound
of electronics is childishly naive, as if the technical progress in the
field of electronic music instruments had stopped in mid eighties and no new
models were produced. I don't know what is the reason for that - either lack
of money to buy good equipment, or "author's concept" of these musicians,
but the fact is evident: that sounds rather unexpectedly at the end of the
year 2000... Unfortunately, the majority of compositions are not diverse and
that is a minus, though the melodies are more or less qualitative.
After all I have to say... that in fact, the album is not bad indeed, and
the band has got prospects of further creative development, they are young
and energetic and will break through. But as a debut release of a newly
formed label Decadance, the album is a bit weak and it's sales will probably
be poor. And poor sales can easily end project's activity... But I'd better
not make such prophecies, as everything can happen in Italy, even miracles.
Actually, one could put the guys a "4" but it would be to stretch a point,
as there are enough minuses and drawbacks on the disc. So they get a firm
"3" and that is not bad... for a debut... there appear worse productions.
Sergey Merenkov
YENDRI "Breakdown of Reality" / (p)00 Matrix Cube/Trisol
Form the cover of this album, a typical gothbabe is staring at you.
You will agree that such design is typical for gothic albums, each
second gothic bands decorates the sleeve with a picture of a gothic
model. But this cover features Yendri herself, I mean himself, for
it turned out that he is make, although he masquerades very
convincingly and offers pictures of himself dressed in gothic
dressed and lace at his website. Although it doesn't make much fuss
after the perversions of Anna-Varney from SOPOR AETERNUS, and the
main thing that exposes him is his vocals, it is very distorted with
various distortions and vocoders, but its gender doesn't leave any
doubts. This is the second album by Yendri, I confess I hadn't heard
the first one, but it is described as a mixture of L'AME IMMORTELLE
and SOPOR AETERNUS. Either the sound has changed a lot, or whatever,
but I didn't fund anything adopted from SOPOR AETERNUS except the
androgenic main hero. I'd rather describe it as a mixture of L'AME
IMMORTELLE and say EIFFEL 65, hope you remember the wonderful
euro-dance band that played "I'm blue, da bu dee da bu da". The
vocal is put through the vocoder and sounds very funnily, in a
euro-dance way (exactly like EIFFEL 65), while the music is a
simple, but hit pop-darkwave. And it's not bad: the core of the
material is real gothic club hits, although sounding a bit unusual.
Kinda euro-dance-darkwave.
coroner
V/A - "The Power of a New Aeon" / (p)00 Palace Of Worms
New compilation of Palace of Worms label is rather a pretentious release in
all senses of the word - "The Power of a New Aeon" is a musical "reading" of
Tarot cards. On this double CD, 22 bands presented special exclusive tracks
and each of them is related to one of 22 senior Tarot Arcanes. It's clear
the idea is grandiose, but ultra-complicated. Actually, the majority of
modern compilations tend to present exclusive tracks, but what is meant by
"exclusive tracks"? Very often they appear to be banal remixes, but rarely
real exclusive tracks, previously unreleased. But what can we say about this
compositions? Very often it is a material, which condemned for the album and
that's the reason, why those "exclusive" tracks are marked by certain
deficiency. A bit rarely, the bands write songs for compilations - it's very
often the case with tributes, when a band records exclusive cover version.
Of course I don't know how the compositions from this compilation were
written, but probably the most part of the bands approached the creative
process rather seriously, penetrating deeply into esotericism of Tarot, but
frankly speaking, one has a feeling that majority of bands just made
slapdash, either gave their old stored songs out to be new ones, or produced
some "noisy droning" track. That is the saddest moment - why should noisy
droning take place if music deals with Tarot or Runes? I can't get it. The
group of American knights & princes THE SOIL BLEEDS BLACK presented a
neo-medieval composition under "Jester" card; beautiful melody and female
vocals - a good track. "Magician" card is a thoughtful kind of magic droning
by 4TH SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE. CONSCIENTIA PECCATI - "Higher Priestess"
card, an eastern droning with pleasant whispering vocals - rather
qualitative ritual composition. "Empress" card - well made
pop-medieval-darkwave track by OPERA MULTI STEEL: beautiful male and female
chant vocals, performing something like "medieval", based on jolly drakwave
music - QNTAL's laurels don't let some people rest. Cult dark ambient group
AH CAMA-SOTZ presents rather traditional drone under "Emperor" card - somber
and magnificent composition. LORETTA'S DOLL - militaristic ambient
composition to "Papa" card - a pale sounding one. "Lovers" card is presented
by IN WINTER BLEEDING - beautiful electro-ethereal composition with male
vocals, not so original, but touching. DREAM INTO DUST presented a
composition according to "Chariot" card - this is another dark ambient.
ARCANA worked on "Power" card and no wonder their track appeared to be
"powerful" without exaggeration - dark neoclassic composition - first
masterpiece on the compilation. Another masterpiece came right after the
first one - the track by STAY FRIGHTENED under "Hermit" card: sad and
beautiful gothic ambient composition, rather original and distinctive track.
PILORI worked on the "Wheel of fortune" card but unfortunately their eastern
ritual composition can't be marked for originality. ATHANATOR worked on
"Justice" card - guitar-ambient track, too experimental for my ear. ONTARIO
BLUE - extremely long ambient track: "Hanged" card and it really suits the
title - I was ready to hang myself of boredom. AUTUMN TEARS - oh miracle!
After all boring ambient tracks, their composition is like a breath of fresh
air - excellent ethereal - the third masterpiece of this compilation:
"Death" card. "Abstemiousness" card was presented by VEHEMENCE REALIZED -
good ethereal rock, but without special revelations. In comparison to
ONTARIO BLUE, ENDURA (both are the projects of Steven Pennick) is livelier
and more interesting - magnificent "cinematographic" gothic ambient -
"Devil" card. BLEEDING LIKE MINE worked on the card called "Tower" and it's
not difficult to guess the style - traditional gothic ambient with
male/female vocal duo. Oh, that's a real hit - CHANTS OF THE FALLEN -
wonderful ethereal track with angelic female vocals and medieval melodic.
This band's worth paying attention to - "Star" card. PSYCHONAUT - another
drone under "Moon" card. ARCANTA - great track and the fifth masterpiece;
extremely beautiful neoclassic composition with opera male vocals -
magnificent and hopeless under "Sun" card. NOTHUS FILIUS MORTIS - not bad
"synthesizer" neoclassic composition with whispering vocals, not a
masterpiece, but comprehensible - "Eon" card. The card called "Universe" is
presented by DEAD LEAVES RISING - beautiful guitar instrumental track,
smooth and sad.
After listening to the given item, one has not such a pleasant feeling - on
the one hand there is a great number of famous bands, but on the other hand
there are only few real masterpieces which are simply lost in the mass of
pale noisy drones. Of course my interest in Tarot is not that strong, I
don't know... may be if one uses this compilation as an addition to
practice, one will probably feel something special, but to my mind, the
musical content appeared to be a bit weak. To add one more thing, one should
mention that Senior Tarot Arcane pack was used as a basis, created by
Alister Crowley (which is noticeable in the card names - Eon and Universe).
I would also like to pay your attention to CD booklet, designed as Tarot
cards by Michael Riddick (THE SOIL BLEEDS BLACK) - this man has got talent
and the fact of his being a master of gothic design is not a secret for
anybody...
coroner
(c) 2000 Russian Gothic Project
Design by Chthon (c) 1999
..