“Number on arbitrary abstract human-made calendar change with completion of our planet’s star orbit, now everything can go back to being good again.” Yeah, right. Luckily I think that delusion has already been shattered for most people. Only took six days, ha. The nightmare continues, regardless of what number is on the Gregorian calendar.
Anyway, after doing a Top 5 last month I decided to just keep doing that. It wasn’t the first time I faced having to make painful cuts to whittle my favorites down to 3 and one honorary mention. This way more bands get spotlight, so it’s good all around. I just have to start writing these more ahead of time. I can’t edit the labels on Blogger so it’s still going to be tagged as Top 3 Songs of the Month. I don’t feel like making a new label, but I probably should. I could just leave the number out of the new label altogether, in case I change my mind again. Maybe it will be a little project for me to do soon, go back to all my old blogs and add the new label.
At any rate, there’s lots of good music coming out right now. I’m still getting through some of the music I discovered last month, but I do have one song from 2021 to talk about.
Manticore Kiss - Aboulia
This song officially debuted on New Years Day, making it my first favorite of 2021. And it taught me a new word. Manticore Kiss is unique in that they employ a cello. Now a goth sax, like that used occasionally by Night Nail and Lebanon Hanover, is impressive enough, but a goth cello? It’s something I never knew I wanted. The vocals on this track are beautiful, from both singers. The synths are catchy and evoke kind of a Halloween feel. And the lyrics are all about a severe form of depression where you don’t even feel motivated to move. Doesn’t get much more goth than this, folks. You can really feel the emotion permeating through this track, which I love about it. You can feel the aboulia. I eagerly await this band’s debut album, but the single for this track is out on Bandcamp. That’s the studio version, unlike the live one above from YouTube, so the audio is cleaner.
https://manticorekiss.bandcamp.com/
Claustraphobia - Broken
Into Grey - Shadows
Paradox Obscur - Deep Down in a Box
Molchat Doma - Otveta Net
We round off the Top 5 with this cold, dreary track by Molchat Doma, off their most recent album “Monument”. The lyric video above has English captions for those of us who don’t speak Russian very well (I’m trying to teach myself the alphabet). From what I can gather, it is a song about living alone in a decaying old Soviet-era apartment, with the singer having apparently just gone through a breakup. The lyrics have a lot of clear visual description; a candle stub in a bottle, the creaky floors, an ash tray with cigarette butts. The music itself conveys the emotions behind the song. I’ve not gotten tired of Molchat Doma since I started listening to them last summer, there’s a certain mood to their music that no other band really captures. They bring you into the world of post-Soviet dreariness whether or not you’ve even been to a post-Soviet country.
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