Yes, it can be pretty difficult to take goth music seriously, in part because its practitioners are so serious themselves. Few things invoke a giggle fit quite as effectively as the sight of a sallow 15-year-old wearing black lipstick, black lace, and a tragic facial expression, listening to funereal music with Latin lyrics and lots of cellos. And this album's cover art doesn't really give one hope for anything less hackneyed -- between the dark forest, the 19th century church facade, and the statue of a weeping angel, it's ...
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Yes, it can be pretty difficult to take goth music seriously, in part because its practitioners are so serious themselves. Few things invoke a giggle fit quite as effectively as the sight of a sallow 15-year-old wearing black lipstick, black lace, and a tragic facial expression, listening to funereal music with Latin lyrics and lots of cellos. And this album's cover art doesn't really give one hope for anything less hackneyed -- between the dark forest, the 19th century church facade, and the statue of a weeping angel, it's got just about every goth cliché covered. So the stylistic variety and occasional rich complexity of the music it contains come as a very pleasant surprise. The album opens with "Concubine Crush Factor #8" (no, really, give it a chance) by Christopher, a dark but not heavy exploration of ethereal North African melisma and electronic textures; it gets even more interesting with Ego Likeness's "Drown Like You," a song whose muscular funk structure nicely offsets the singer's self-consciously spooky delivery, and hits its peak on "One Eyed Man" by This Morn Omina, a song that combines what sound like (but probably aren't) British football chants with thick industrial rhythms, resulting in a dense and forbidding soundscape that sounds something like a cross between Barmy Army and Ministry. Other highlights include the gothic trip-hop of Collide's "Razor Sharp" and the rather heavy metalish "Gave Up" by Anathema Device. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the outer territories of the goth scene. ~ Rick Anderson, Rovi
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