The Top 10 Goth/ Post-Punk Albums of 2024...so far

 

The great TikTok goth craze of 2022 is a distant memory to the lemming-minded masses and it is just another depressing day for actual goths to celebrate darkness. Since goth is about music with a side order of fashion, it's time to look at the mid-year report card for goth, post-punk, and industrial music this year.  I have already received promos for albums dropping as far out as August in my inbox, so they are really going to need to bring it to compete with the top five albums on this list. Given my tastes things lean in the more death-rock direction. I like my goth to be aggressive, to the point, even one metal band made the list. Though most sub-genres are represented here, though not much of interest in terms of dark wave which really impressed me this year. There are very few projects here that rely too much on electronics as I am a firm believer in actual instruments making music.  I have included links to full reviews if you want to check these out and with all that said here are the top 10 goth/ post-punk albums of 2023 so far. 

   10-Blushing-"Sugarcoat" 

 Dream pop is the first handy label to throw on this Texas-based band,  but they do seem more serious about rocking out than most dream pop bands. They at times remind me of a shoegazing version of Veruca Salt, with how the vocals harmonize and entwined. Things swirl around you so it can be hard to tell who is doing what

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/05/blushing-sugarcoat.html

 

9-Louvado Abismo- "s/t" 

This band from Portugal gets it. Too many new post-punk bands don't pack enough of a punch sending me back to my old Killing Joke and Christian Death albums. This album stomps with dark aggression to make something that is sonically intense, The plead of the vocals feels real rather than someone trying to recreate what has already been done, but true to the legacy of the genre. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/04/louvado-abismo-st.html

8 -Bleakheart - "Silver Pulse" 

This band wanders off into a melancholic brand of dreamy shoe-gaze that moves at the speed of doom. Their heavy throb often keeps them from being mere dream pop. They have crafted a pretty sweet blend of sonic intensity and atmosphere. The vocals draw you in and earn repeat listens. The guitar often shifts its tone to  a more pastoral feel, to keep an organic feel, almost neo-folk mood. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/bleakheart-silver-pulse.html

7-Cold in Berlin - "The Body is the Wound" 

This band encompasses what I love in music, darkness and sonic heaviness. They flirt with metal without abandoning their post-punk core. Expectations are either met on their new ep or exceeded. They have managed to reach a stellar balance with dark wave synths, combined with the heftier drive 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/01/cold-in-berlin-body-is-wound.html

 

6-Crippling Alcoholism -"With Love From a Padded Room" 

This album came out under the radar earlier this year, so glad some digging around on the inner web allowed me to discover it.. They encompass a darkly honest misery I have not heard done this well since Planesmistakenforstars was a band. Raspy baritone vocals frequently entertain a marginally more upbeat melody.  While their Bandcamp keywords label this as goth, they are more like if Tom Waits fronted Interpol, so closer to post-punk. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/06/crippling-alcoholism-with-love-from.html

5-the Jesus and Mary Chain -"Glasgow Eyes" 

The Reid Brothers are back for the 8th album of their 40-year career. For me, the album they are always measured against is "Darklands" as it was my introduction to the band and the most sullen of their work. This album does touch on their more depressive side at times but finds them employing a wide range of moods. It opens with a rather upbeat pulse. It is more experimental in a different way. It sounds like they are toying around with synths and effects. Jim's voice sounds ageless, with his hushed dusky muttering. Lyrically things are brilliant. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/jesus-and-mary-chain-glasgow-eyes.html

4-Chelsea Wolfe- " She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She"

Wolfe's 8th album, yes we are counting "Mistake in Parting" finds her diving into more of a trip-hop feel. That is a trip-hop that is thicker on the trip than the hop. Tv on the Radio guitarist Dave Sitek is the wild card in the creation of this album. This album flows with her body of work. Nothing feels out of her wheelhouse. It is going to take a few listens for the more experimental moments to really click with me, but the moods she invokes are once again welcome.

 

3-Swan Wash -"Shadow, Shadow" 

They used to be members of a Siouxsie and the Banshees tribute, so this explains a great deal when it comes to the guitar tone.  Their sounds carry more hints of punk, though an angular creepiness haunts it. There is an element to it that reminds me of Placebo, which is an influence that is a little left of center when it comes to what most death-rock revivalists are about.  Most of the songs are around the three-minute mark so they do not give themselves too much time to indulge in a brooding atmosphere. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/06/swan-wash-shadow-shadow.html

 

2-METZ-"Up on Gravity Hill" 

The band once again shifts the sonics of their attack on this album, though even amid its weirdness, is more accessible to a wider audience. Woozy guitar counterpoints punk-inflected vocals that are smoothed out by overdubbed harmonies on the chorus. The normally rough edges of noise-rock smoothed out by the more refined nuances of their songwriting to create a more 90s style atl-rock not unlike the bar-room brooding of the Afghan Whigs. The vocals serve a greater purpose than they did even on the last album.  

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/04/metz-up-on-gravity-hill.html

 

1-Astari Nite -"Resolution of Happiness" 

These guys were bound to evolve. I am glad they are. They have expanded their sonic palette, now drawing from dark emotive genres aside from death rock. At times taking on an almost Gary Numan-like take on New Wave. The post-punk jangle of the angular grooves proves to be a more compelling listen. t Lyrically great imagery is thrown at you in a collage of sentiments. There is little of the Christian Death worship that marked their earlier work.

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/05/astari-nite-resolution-of-happiness.html

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March's Top 10 Albums

We now continue on to March's top 10 albums. Staying abreast on the month's highlights might help casual readers see what they missed, and give this the option to check these artists out. I am not doing little blurbs on them, just linking the reviews. This will help me organize my lists for the end of the year, by listing the genre of music the album falls under. This does not mean that these albums have been released this month, but it is a list of new or upcoming albums I have enjoyed the most, I have albums in my in-box that are not coming out til June, so I am normally way ahead of the curve in this regard. They are ranked in order of what I have listened to the most. This month there is a wide variety from indie pop to punk to Thrash, so perhaps you will find your new favorite among them. Here are the Top 10 albums for March 2024.

10- Rope Sect - "Enstrangement" 

Rock 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/rope-sect-enstrangement.html

9- Bleakheart -"Silver Pulse" 

Doom Gaze 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/bleakheart-silver-pulse.html

8-My Dying Bride-  "A Mortal Binding" 

Doom

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/my-dying-bride-mortal-binding.html

7-Atrophy- "Asylum" 

Thrash 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/atrophy-asylum.html

6- Waxahatchee-"Tiger Blood" 

Country

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/waxahatchee-tigers-blood.html

5-Jesus and Mary Chain -"Glasgow Eyes" 

 Post-punk 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/jesus-and-mary-chain-glasgow-eyes.html

4- Faye Webster - "Underdressed at the Symphony" 

Indie  Pop

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/faye-webster-underdressed-at-symphony.html

3-O Zorn ! - "Vermillion Haze" 

Grunge 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/o-zorn-vermillion-haze.html

2-Chapel of Disease - " Echoes of Light" 

Death Metal 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/chapel-of-disease-echoes-of-light.html

1-Gouge Away- "Deep Sage" 

Punk 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/gouge-away-deep-sage.html

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Looking Back in Anger at the Crow Soundtrack

 

It's time to look back at a soundtrack from the 90s and see how it has held up over the years.  For an album largely of covers and b-sides, it has stood the test of time better than most albums from 1994, and in truth aged better than the movie. It opens with "Burn" by the Cure which Smith wrote for the film. Not only is it the album's best song, it is one of the Cure's best songs. It has the drive of "Fascination Street' but the drums bring a tribal tension to it. The slinky bass line finds Machines of Loving Grace abandoning some of the industrial stomps for a more groove-minded song that plays to their strengths as a band, making it one of their best songs as well. Thus two songs in a they have established the theme of sexy darkness, which was the mood this movie was aspiring to. 

Stone Temple Pilots were heading toward peak popularity with the album "Purple" which this song would later appear on. They debuted it on this soundtrack first,  I think this song is lyrically clever, and I like the more subtle blues elements they ebb back down into. Nine Inch Nails cover of  "Dead Souls" works really well. Reznor does his thing rather than going for an Ian Curtis impersonation and it works. The more subtle jazzy passages of "Darkness" bring out Rage Against the Machine's more melodic side, making them seem like less of a one-trick pony. The Violent Femme's "Hallowed Ground" album is an example of their darker side which they tapped back into for "Color Me Once", an overlooked gem on this album.

Despite Henry's vocal limitations, the Rollins Band does a pretty good job of covering Suicide's 'Ghost Rider". There is more swagger than expected here. Butch Vig remixed Helmet's "Milk Toast' for the soundtrack, it's one of the band's calling cards. Pantera covers Poison Idea's "The Badge". and makes it sound like they wrote it. For Love Not Lisa proves they were better than most bands who merged as bigger one-hit wonders from the 90s like saqy Candle Box and this song is a testament to that fact.   My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult is one of the most reliable bands on this soundtrack so you can count on them to deliver, their whole persona is why they were actually playing at a club in the movie. Musically Jesus and Mary Chain is just as consistent, "Snakedriver" being a clear example of this. 

Medicine brought Elizabeth Fraser in for their remake of "Time Baby". Speaking of the Cocteau Twins , they should been the artist to perform the last song "It Can't Rain All the Time". as the Jill Siberry track is the album's only weak moment. It drifts without focus and the Cocteau Twins could have done much better doing similar. So far this reason this album is getting a 9.5, putting it still in the upper tier of movie soundtracks along side the "Lost Boys" soundtrack, 

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Jesus and Mary Chain : "Glasgow Eyes"

The Reid Brothers are back for the 8th album of their 40-year career. For me, the album they are always measured against is "Darklands" as it was my introduction to the band and the most sullen of their work. This album does touch on their more depressive side at times but finds them employing a wide range of moods. It opens with a rather upbeat pulse. It is more experimental in a different way. It sounds like they are toying around with synths and effects. Jim's voice sounds ageless, with his hushed dusky muttering. Lyrically things are brilliant. 

On the second song lies hints of their punk-influenced beginnings. The Brothers mentioned how jazz influenced the making of this album, and it does not make sense until hearing the subtleties of "Mediterranean X Film". This is most profoundly felt in the drumming that comes from Suede / Elastica drummer Justin Welch. "jamcod' was the lead single for this album. It is a somewhat deceptive illusion as to where the album goes as it winks in the direction of its more classic sound. It is very well written and I can understand why this was picked.  I prefer the plan muted tension of  "Discotheques". It feels more post-punk in many ways.

They cruise into a fuzzed-out drone for "Pure Poor". Which finds some cool sounds being used, but is not as well written as their homage to classic rock 'The Eagles and the Beatles". That is even taking into consideration the song's more Joan Jett-like chord progression. "Sliver Strings" is a return to the palm-muted tension, which still works even they go to the well with it once more. I like the more revered out-guitar tone on this one. "Chemical Animal' is a powerful reflection on drug use. In contrast "Second of June" is much more hopeful and almost upbeat. Though it does linger on a droning guitar line. touch o

They crank a riff that has more in common with "Livin' After Midnight" on "Girl 71" . The last song is an obvious tribute to the Velvet Underground, though it does drift off into a more shoe-gazing brand of indie rock. This album might not be as good as "Dark Lands" but it does find the band being just as vital as ever and sounding less encumbered by age than their peers.  I will give it a 9.5. 

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