Gothtober- Harsh Symmetry : "Imitation"

 This Sacramento project embraces the 80s sound that cold wave crawled from. The bouncing synth lines are fairly accurate in capturing the feel of the days being reconstructed here. Things do get darker with "Make Up Artist" though a great deal of this lies in vocals. They sit further back in a darker web of reverb, which is reflected in the mood of the song.  But as we have discussed earlier in previous reviews this month regarding the role of vocals in these revivalist projects , they tend to hide rather than take their place at the forefront, even in moments when they are needed to take to the spotlight on the cover of Madonna's "Open Your Heart" .  Though he is incapable of digging in and belting it out with the guts of Madonna. Madonna who had here moments as a singer, but worked more off the charisma she carried into a song and made the most of what her pipes could or could not do. Thus lies the problem, which is the bulk front people of these projects have zero charisma. However the song itself is so great in it's original form that it's legacy alone carries this performance. 

His voice does carry more resonance than some. But is he measuring up to the singers who really do this thing well. Even Cold Cave makes the most of what they are working with in a manner that carries more sonic power and grace than what is amounting to getting goth from Temu. It looks like the product you want.  "Crystal Smile" does prove that this guy can put all the needed elements in place, the songwriting is not doing this consistently and putting more emphasis on a sound than a song. "Dressed in White" finds things back in a mediocre drone relying on cool synth sounds to carry things while the vocals search for more purpose, which at one point in time used to work for me , as I was just happy to hear a resurgence of dark music, but not there needs to be quality control. 

The title track carries on with a similar drone to what we heard in the previous song, though with vocals that are even more lost thanks to the smoke machine filling the song with a opaque haze. I think some of the fault in this sort of thing are overlooked even by more established acts, as if it is bumped over a club PA on goth night, people will keep dancing to anything with a similar beat that does not change dramatically from the one they were already dancing to. How many cases during the dance do they stop to think wait is this a good song? Which I think is a fitting analogy for what I liked about this album enough to give it a 7, which is it worked off sounds I like to dance to, this project might evolve past that nostalgia and find surer footing with different production choices in the future.