If this entry seems late, it’s because I was waiting until after Navasard to post it. So, this is where I usually give news about my plans for the blog in the coming month, plans which may or may not actually come to fruition, of course. I don’t have any major blog plans right now, but I have certain ideas for things to write about. I don’t think many people read posts where I show off my collections, but despite that, I would like to do one about my collection of cassette albums. I have some more mixtape playlists I want to share too. I might also do a book review soon, and maybe even show off some art. So, stay tuned for that and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Anyway,
let’s have a listen to the bands I’ve been into as of late. I’ve been listening
to a lot of coldwave lately; anything with a low tempo, dreary instrumentals
and droning vocals. I haven’t been all that into anything upbeat.
Forever
Grey – Cathedral of Hailstone
This song is so darkly beautiful. I
love it. It’s a song of deep melancholy beauty, which is everything I love
about this genre of music. It contrasts the conventional idea of beauty,
because it’s not also a happy or upbeat song, but those who love the darkness
can appreciate it. It reminds me of an enormous ice cathedral in the middle of
a frozen tundra at night, with the northern lights in the sky. Such a contrast
from the unbearable summer heat of Florida. It’s refreshing. I would love to
hear this song at a night club. Those twinkling synths throughout the song almost
remind me of Ice World in Super Mario Bros. 3 , actually. I guess it’s been
designated as an “icy” sound for a long time now. As an aside, someone needs to
make a coldwave song to the Ice World theme. Just slow it down, add some bass
guitar and dreary vocals, and voila. Anyway, I digress. When I do a new version
of my Cold mix I should include this song. It would go good after “Cold” by The
Cure on the playlist. I might go ahead and update the Spotify playlist with
this song, if it’s on Spotify.
You
may remember that last month my number one song was “The Style is Death”, also
by Forever Grey. This song is off the very same album. I’m still really into
that song too, actually. I’ve been in love with Forever Grey’s discography this
summer.
You can find their album Alabaster Chamber here: https://forevergrey.bandcamp.com/album/alabaster-chamber
Slow
Danse with the Dead – So Obnoxious
Slow
Danse with the Dead, formerly known as The Endless, is a one-man band out of New Mexico,
who just released their first album under their new moniker last month. I’m not
always so up to date with current bands, but this time I discovered it right
away, all thanks to it being shared in a Coldwave Facebook group I’m in, and
the Communion After Dark podcast. You might wonder why they spell it “danse”.
Maybe it’s just to be different. Or to avoid lawsuits, kind of like when the
Norwegian metal band Covenant changed their name to The Kovenant because there
was an industrial band with the same name that sued them…anyway, off topic. I
read an interview with the sole member of the band Johnny Ray M. just yesterday, and he said
the spelling was a nod to “Danse Macabre”. So that settles it. I
couldn’t resist buying their album, SDWTD, on cassette when I saw that
it was being offered on the format, so I did. I never thought there’d come a
day when you’re more likely to see music released on cassette than CD, but here
we are. The cassette only had four songs, and is one of the shortest cassettes
I’ve seen, but I still liked it. And at least it also came with MP3 downloads
with bonus tracks. Buying the album digitally is the same price, minus the
shipping, so it works out buying it on cassette if you think about it. It came with
a cool little pin too with the band logo on it. Perfect for the beaten-up
leather jacket I have that I’m trying to convert into good DIY attire for a
goth club. Here’s the cassette:
I like all the songs on an almost equal level.
The song “I Tried to be a Nice Guy” would be the closest runner-up. “So
Obnoxious” was the first song I heard from the band. It is a bleak song, with
vocals that sound almost comically miserable. Slow Danse With the Dead is
apparently part of a new subgenre called “miserygoth” (I don’t know if it’s an
official genre really), with a handful of other bands emerging with a similar
sound and deeply depressing lyrics. The song is about how being overly
optimistic just leads to higher levels of disappointment than it would for a
pessimist. This has been my life experience as well, so I relate to it. As the
song says, “To be overly optimistic is the worst.” The lyrics also insist that
optimistic people are obnoxious. I suppose I’ve known some obnoxious optimists
in my time.
You
can buy the album here: https://slowdansewiththedead.bandcamp.com/album/sdwtd-2
Silent
EM – Foreign States
I actually discovered this song recently when the
band themselves shared it on their Facebook page, noting that the lyric
repeated throughout the song “How can you live here? They’ll let you die!”
reminds them of the United States. They had my curiosity before, but now they
had my attention. I hadn’t gotten around to this album yet from the band,
having previously purchased a more recent album. But now I’ll need to. This song
is a lot more energetic than the last two songs, having an almost angry feel to
it. This song may have come out in 2018 but it is even more relevant now, at a
time when even the supposedly left-leaning DNC voted down supporting Medicare
For All during a pandemic with people losing their jobs, and full-time jobs
being one of the very few ways to get health insurance in this country. They
really will let you die here if you’re poor; the two main parties are united on
that front. Ahem, anyway, that’s as political as I’ll get right now, I’d rather
not agitate anyone. (Don’t mind me, I’m still mad about almost being allowed to
die when I had a serious medical issue and no health insurance, having to
convince them it was enough of an emergency before they would help me and now
being thousands of dollars deep in medical debt; as well as being forced to
quit a job at a museum that I actually liked and becoming stuck in a hellish
call center for almost a year while my wife was pregnant because she needed
health insurance that my initial museum job didn’t provide.)
You can
buy the album here: https://detritirecords.bandcamp.com/album/silent-em-foreign-states
Honorable
Mention: Little Big – Skibidi
I could have listed another Forever
Grey song here, or another Slow Danse with the Dead song, but I decided to be
different and go to another genre. This list is too depressing and in some dire need of levity.
Little Big is another strange Russian group I encountered recently. I suppose
you could call them pop, but Russian pop is very different from American pop,
far less generic and manufactured. Little Big’s songs and videos are usually
very comedic and absurd, and this one tops them all. It seems to take place in
some strange alternate universe where everyone constantly does this weird arm
dance, even during financial transactions. You also have to appreciate a song
that uses frog, dog and rooster samples as part of its beat. You just have to
watch it, I can’t describe it here.
If you
find yourself intrigued, you can find the album here: https://little-big.bandcamp.com/album/antipositive-pt-2-2
No comments:
Post a Comment