Gothtober -Acid Witch : "Evil Sound Screamers"

Not only did this album come out today, but it's Halloween themed so this had to be reviewed today . When it kicks in the vocals don't follow a typical death metal grunt but have a fiendish cackle to them. The 60's keyboards add spooky camp. With a bass tone that reminds me of Acid Bath they are heavy enough to be metal without forgetting about songwriting or just trying to bludgeon you. After this  they go for a  more blatant in your face metal and the vocals go down into more of a growl. "Cheap Gore" finds them continuing along a more death metal like path, though the riffs to this song have an engaging groove. The album continues to be strung together with samples in-between the songs to keep the Halloween mood.

"Nain Rogue" plays into local folk lore. It has a more bull dozing drive that the eerie synths balance out. The vocals take on more of a evil scowl that they typical lower death metal growl we hear in other sections of the album.While doom is an influence on this band and heard touched upon on "Mutilation Mansion" I would not refer to these guys as doom. I like the more Celtic Frost like vocals that are layered against the lower growls on this song. This album really excels at the mood it creates and is not a one trick pony by any means , elevating it above most of the death metal I hear.


"Hardrock Halloween" throbs with a sludge like pulse though the guitar riffs has a more traditional classic metal feel. A minute into the closing homage to horror " An Evil Sound Screaming" there is a instrumental portion that reminds me to "Tubular Bells" otherwise known as the theme to the Exorcist. The balance of ambiance and death metal works really well and I can see this appealing to people that might not normally be into this flavor of metal. I am a big fan of the fact it's all pretty dark. I'll round this one up to a 9.5 , making it one of the year's better death metal albums.
If you are too much of a pussy step away from your Siouxsie and the Banshees albums to check this out then it's your loss.

Gothtober- the Goth Shuffle

A post shared by Daniel R Moore Photography (@drmfoto) on Oct 22, 2017 at 12:47pm PDT

Ok this is going to be like the Weekly shuffle except I am only reviewing the first ten goth songs that come up in my iPod.

Gary Numan- "If I Said" 

This album continues to grow on me. The vocals on this song remind me a little more of Smashing Pumpkins that what I think of as classic Gary Numan, but it still works .

Isendoral - "Tear the Veil of Dreams" 

On the more metal side of goth ,but with less eye liner. There  are generous amounts of neo-folk in this album as well, often they are in conflict with harsher vocals.  It's one that I owe more listens before the year ends.

KMFDM - "Freak Flag" 

One of the poppier songs on this album. It's still a pretty solid album as these moments are done better than they executed them in the band's more recent ebm past.

Marilyn Manson- Vodevil

"the Golden Age of Grotesque" is his most under rated album. Maybe it just connected with me at a certain time in life, but I think it's better than most of his shit that came out after and half the shit that came out before.

Nine Inch Nails - "This Isn't the Place" 

So this might not be Trent's darkest moment, but I think the songs on this album have a interesting atmosphere that doesn't sound dated like some of the 90s moments.

The Cure- "Pictures of You" 

As far as radio songs go this one is one of the more tolerable moments. I think I said enough about this song when I recently did the top 50 Cure songs countdown.

David Bowie- "I'm Afraid of Americans" 

Of the Bowie songs that would fall into this category, this is one of the more obvious moments. I still love listening to the industrial albums he did in the 90s.

Chelsea Wolfe- "Offering" 

When I interviewed her she swore she was not goth, but still makes music that is dark enough to qualify for a list like this .

Peter Murphy -"Indigo Eyes" 

This song almost just makes the cut because this is Peter Murphy and even when it's a happy song like this when he opens his mouth to sing it makes it goth enough.

Grave Pleasures - "Atomic Christ" 

This new album has more of a punk thing going on , but when you have someone from Current 93 doing spoken word at the intro of the song then you make it one here. The bass line is very Cure like.

Exhumed : "Death Revenge"

So I dipped into this album because I was reviewing a pop punk album and it was getting to be too much for me and needed a breather. So I bean alternating back and forth between the two albums. They could be at any further ends of the spectrum that is for sure. These guys are machine like in there approach to old school death metal. Matt Harvey is the only original member in the band. A couple of the guys do go back to 96 , so they have paid some dues. They consider themselves gore grind. They are less punk influenced than say Ghoul. Typically this sort of thing is a little too straight forward for me and not dark enough, but the do have some catchy riffs. They only bore me with blunt force on "Dead End" . It is obvious they came out of the more Exodus end of the thrash days. Death metal grew out of this more than "Scream Bloody Gore".

If you have any doubts about death metal's thrash beginnings then check out that Slayer riff in "Night Work". It all comes together really solidly. This is the first song that hooks me in all the way.The moshy riff midway into "Unspeakable" makes it more interesting than, "the Harrowing". Then the need for speed begins to mire them down a little and the monochrome emotional range of this genre sets in. All the songs are of course about death. It's when they are finding the more Slayer like grooves that the band is allowed to fully function to the best of their ability and I do not mind the dive bomb Slayer worship of the guitar solo's since Slayer doesn't sound like Slayer anymore. The symphonic interludes are not a real ground breaking distraction from the meat of the metal. I think when the guitar echoes the melody of the strings however it is more effective.

The vocals on this album are a trade off of deep gurgled growls and higher more snarling rasps that are sightly Obituary like in their exclamatory phrasing .One of the album's most impressive moments it the instrumental 'the Anatomy Act of  1832".  It's not an interlude , but a fully fleshed song that keeps your attention throughout.  The bass tone has a thrash like picked rumble when it does become audible, but the main stage spot light of this and most death metal is the guitar and drums. The double bass is pretty smoking and the guitar are mean enough sounding to get the job done , but largely keep the tone planted firmly in 1998. There are some sections of guitar harmonies that find them in melo-death for a verse here and they are largely committed to being brutal.So if you want 90s flavored death metal and are too young to have caught it the first time around then this will seem very fresh. If you just want aggression out of your death metal, these guys have that I'll give it a 7.5, it's a solid album, when I want to hear this sort of things I'll go with something from that time period I am more drawn to like Deicide.

Ocaso : "Demo"

At this rate I might get caught up on everything worth hearing before December when I am cramming to make my end of the year lists.This demo was released way back in March. Its a band from Germany that has an nice dark sound. It might make you ask where does sludge begin and neo-crust end. Another question is does having a violin part automatically make you neo-crust , folk or otherwise? It starts off sounding better than a demo until they converge into a heavier section that requires them to speed things up. I think there are more battle metal elements at play than this band wants to confess to. Some of this lies in the darker mood being conveyed.

When the band is working to cleaner tones and giving the song room to breathe they are playing more toward their sweet spots. There is a pretty powerful chug to the title track. For this being a demo they vary their guitar tones here to good effect and lock into some really riffing. The dry rasp of the vocals which would fall more toward the crust side of the equation, are the only dull quality, but the guitars are making things interesting enough to make that barking a mute point. Though the do on occasion venture up into more of a anguished black metal yell. There is more of a gallop to "Humans" which is more straight forward than the first two songs. The bass player runs further up the neck to give it more of a Iron Maiden feel. There is a more melodic feel to "Mediale Sucht" . The vocal switch into a more choked higher rasp that forms more of a call and response with the main vocal. This song has more dynamic ebb than what we have heard up to this point and rides the line between post-rock and black metal. If you are only defining black metal by blast beats than it's not black metal, though the tremolo guitar of black metal is present to some degree.

If this is just this band's demo then I would really like to hear what this band could do with proper support of a label in a real studio. The results would be stunning I am sure. My only complaint is I wish there was more. Not sure if this is something I would actually listen to on a regular basis , but there is no denying what these guys have done here. I think the kind of maturation in song writing I would need for this to be something in regular rotation would come if this was a full length in a real studio. So I will give this one a 9.

Gothtober - Flesh World : " Into the Shroud"

I once swore of Siouxsie tribute bands as the influx of them at one point was becoming unbearable. This band from San Francisco at least cashes in on less explored sides of Siouxsie. The mix is somewhat 80's punk lo-fi, but allows for some atmosphere.  The title track as not as compelling as the opener as it goes by in a quirky indie blur. The chorus to "Knock to Answer" also falls a little flat though the guitars do some interesting things in the background. The could have stood to have been dialed up in the mix. "To Hell With Your Purity" has more of a punk attitude to it. I like the lyrics better to this one. The punk thing continues on "Problem With the Youth Bulge". While their is a good dose of indie rock indifference to their sound and the vocal delivery, it would be more fitting to say these guys are moody rather than dark. They are dark enough to fall into the post-punk genre, though not death rock at all.

"Tell Me I'm In Exhale" took a couple of listens to grow on me.Its more on the indie rock side. I am not sure why these kids are being called dream pop as this song is almost more like Hole. There is strummed guitar on the 90's like alt-pop of "Ship Him To Shanghi" which sounds like some of the Cure's poppier moments. The album closes with "This Great Cheap Face". This one is at more of a post-punk pace. The vocals don't really do much for me on this song, though once again the guitars are pretty cool yet too far back in the mix. Live these guys would probably be really good as the vocals would fall back behind the guitars.I can hear the Siouxsie influence again on this one. You know I have to be careful what I ask for as not enough Siouxsie finds it falling more into indie rock blandness .


 As far as indie rock goes they are dark and moody enough for me to stomach it. Though they are far from being among the darkest of the bands I have covered this month and work more off of their odd quirk.They have potential if they would give into their dark side and mix the guitars up louder. I'll give this album a 7.5. It was released on Dark Entries a record label that has an interesting roster than goes from indie rock like this to edm from France.

Gothtober - Flynn Effect :"Obsidian"

This is a pop infected brand of darkwave with guitars to it or at least that is where the album starts off it gradually gets more radio rock as it goes. The female vocals are dramatic but more on the rock side of the fence. It sounds good aside from some of the synth settings sounding like they are from an anime soundtrack. But maybe that is exactly what they were going for . This project is from Australia , but it could have been from Japan. It is interesting that when artists come from places outside of western influence there can be an element of the sound remaining locked in a time period music coming out of America has already seen come and go by a decade. The guitars do give "Fade" more of a metallic edge, but it reminds me of pre-nu metal Lacuna Coil. The drumming is pretty decent, though the guitars are fairly color by numbers metal.

By the time I get to "Eastwood Blues" I begin to suspect that perhaps I am not the demographic they are going for since I am not a teenage girl and I expect teenage girls might find this heavier. They do use some different tones on this song, but it feels like they are going into more uncertain territory. She has a good voice, but goes to places too similar when it comes to the melodies she crafts. I would like to hear a wider range of emotion expressed from her. I think it was on "Tremors" when it all started to bleed together for me. Her voice doesn't sound as sure of it self as it does at the beginning of the album, but once the song kicks in everything becomes a bit of a blur as the songs after this one become indistinguishable. In fact I had to go back and give another listen to them in order to find the points of separation. There is a little more of an electronic power ballad quality to "Talk". The formula is used on all the songs on this album sometimes they just kick into a little more aggressively.

"The Darkest Hour" starts off harder is a little more firmly planted on the rock side of the coin in a manner similar to the Gathering. Her vocal range is fairly limited as most of the stick in a mid-range alto. The piano ballad eventually does the power ballad build, it's my least favorite on the album. "Give in To Me" has more of a nu-metal groove to it. Her voice could use some effects to it as it sounds very dry where it sits in the mix.I'll give this album a 5.5. These guys could stand to get darker and heavier and the vocals needed way more love in post-production.

Gothtober-Suffer in Paradise :"Ephemere"

Dreary enough to help get you in the mood for the coming dark season the winter solstice is about to usher in, these guys do have a gothic enough sound with the atmosphere created by the keyboards. Funereal doom might not be goth in the traditional sense, but doom metal has crossed over into goth with bands like My Dying Bride so I see Funeral doom being the spawn of that band. What is more goth than a funereal? The ten minute title track opens the album. I am always hungry for this kind of doom so the atmospheric melancholy is sweet to my ears. In the tradition of other bands I love like Evoken and Mournful Congregation. The songs have a beautiful creep to them. The atmosphere this Russian band creates is different from that of their predecessors as it is more steeped in a contrasting gentleness to the melodies.

The guitars tremolo pick on "My Pillory" in way that sound more like strings and not black metal at all. They hit a similar majestic territory as Mournful Congregation going into the verse. The guitars blend well with the organ sound. The production on this album is admirable.The drums sound a little programmed and tinny going into "the Swan Song of Hope". While the synths worked on the first two songs, they work best with more of the guitar's low end set against them.The rest of the song doesn't tap into the power I heard on the first two songs and is what I want more of. The piano part in 'the Wheels of Fate" sounds really good, but the drums need more balls to the as the patter of double bass is too lightly mixed.The low end gurgle of the vocals still works but could also use a little from the mix which finds the synths way too forward and the heaviness getting lost in the atmosphere. The clean guitar break half way into the song would have had more impact if things had seemed heavier going into it. At the seven and a half minute mark things take a more organic turn and it sounds like they really plug and showed up. The vocals are also more layered.

 The Bone Garden" finds the increasing metallic attack of the guitar over powered by the piano and softer elements that the mix is bolstering. The strings sound fine and the classical elements have their place in what these guys do, I think the heaviness really needs more love. You can hear some of the cool ideas they had in mind for the guitars but the execution is thwarted by the mix. Ironically "Call Me to the Darkside" could stand to be a little darker. They do beef up the metal, so the synths are not drowning it out. So at least it moves in a heavier direction and does get darker at the end so it must have takne time for that call to go through, I will give this album an 8 most of it's problems are in post-production. The first to songs are great and none of the songs are bad some times the point comes across better than others.