Top 5 Songs of the Month ~ April 2021/Ահեկի 4513 ~ Statiqbloom, Christian Death, Vincas

It’s been an interesting month for me musically, since the last of these Top 5 lists. I finally got a new MP3 player that holds 16 gigabytes; far more than the paltry 2 gigabytes my old MP3 player holds. So to fill it up I’ve gone deep into my CD archives and dredged up songs I haven’t heard in years. Currently I have 1,360 songs, and that number is growing as I go through my vast CD collection. On this MP3 player, bands as far-flung from each other as Metallica, The Cure, The Smashing Pumpkins, Dimmu Borgir, Lebanon Hanover, System of a Down, Kraftwerk, Voltaire, Cradle of Filth, Das Ich, And One and Cab Calloway all coexist. It’s music from all the stages of my life. As a result, I haven’t been constantly listening to new stuff lately, but instead taking walks down memory lane. My new stuff is on there, but few and far between as I listen to each song alphabetically. At the same time though, I did do a little shopping spree on Bandcamp recently too, so I have been listening to what I bought there. Some honorable mentions that aren’t on this list which I recently bought albums from are Bleib Modern, Slow Danse With The Dead and Forever Grey. They might make it next month, I just haven’t had enough time to listen to what I purchased just yet.

Statiqbloom - Black Walks Eternal 

Bad luck isn’t brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds. 

This is one of those songs that I’ve known about for a while but took some time to climb my personal charts. I first heard it on a livestream concert Statiqbloom released last summer on YouTube, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The more I listened to the concert the more I liked this track. I finally bought the album it’s from this past Bandcamp Friday, Blue Moon Blood, released in 2017. The voice samples are particularly fun. “What’s wrong with me? I’m not some kind of kook!” At the end of the song we even get special guest vocals by the late Stephen Hawking (not really, but it sounds like him). My first exposure to Statiqbloom was the song “Thin Hidden Hand” a few years ago. They reminded me of a mixture of Velvet Acid Christ and Das Ich, two of my all-time favorites. I haven’t been disappointed by them yet so I will be working my way through their discography. 

https://statiqbloom.bandcamp.com/album/blue-moon-blood

Christian Death - Figurative Theatre (Klute Version)

This is a song I heard through Radio Garden on one of the goth stations. Even though they are a seminal, pioneering band for goth rock, I never really got into Christian Death before. Not because I don’t like it, it just kind of slipped under my radar. I was into the electronic side of goth music (industrial, EBM, synthpop, etc.) before I got into goth rock and post-punk in recent years. But this song is so very catchy. It’s off a remix album called Death Mix that was released in 1996. This track was remixed by Klute, who now goes by Klutae. It’s quite the earworm.

You can buy it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Mix-Christian/dp/B000001JT6

Vincas - Let Me In 

Vincas is a post-punk and darkwave band from Athens, Georgia. Interesting story about how I came across this song. It is part of an upcoming compilation album called UNEARTH’D, which I agreed to review on my blog. While listening to each song and kind of mentally digesting them and coming up with what to say about each, this one stood out to me the most. It seems to be about a creepy guy hanging around outside someone’s window, wanting to be let in. It’s a short song, but to the point. The twang of the guitar in this track betrays underlying southern rock influences I think. It definitely sounds like how you would think goth music from Georgia would sound.

Get it here:

https://vincas.bandcamp.com/track/let-me-in-3

No Man’s Land - Плачь

I first heard this one as part of another one of those Russian Doomer Music compilations on YouTube. The anguished, impassioned cry of “Plach! Plach! Plach! Plach !” is what got my attention. The word “Плачь”, “plach” in English letters, translates to “cry”. I didn’t realize this was what the singer was shouting repeatedly until I translated the title; I previously thought it sounded more like “blazh”. I’m still trying to learn the Russian alphabet. No Man’s Land released the album this song is from in 1997, Слезы, making it another 90s song this month that I just now discovered. I don’t know what else the song is about, but what I do understand is the emotion it.

A remastered version of the album is available on CD and digital on Bandcamp.

https://darkpage.bandcamp.com/album/no-mans-land

Minuit Machine - Lovers of the Night

Minuit Machine has long been one of my favorite coldwave bands. The songs “Don’t Run From the Fire” and “To Control” had been on my monthly charts late last year, and it was high time for this track to climb it’s way up as well, after I listened to the four track Don’t Run from the Fire EP it was on a few more times. The entire EP is excellent, by the way. Each track has so much power to it. But, the previous two tracks I mentioned kind of overshadowed the rest for me back when it first came out. This song was brought to my attention again when the music video was released in early March. Sometimes that’s kind of what it takes to get me into a song, being that I’m constantly inundated with new music. The lyrics are interesting; I can’t really tell if it’s supposed to be a happy or sad song. The music itself is melancholy. The lyrics “Dance until you die, fuck until you cry” make me wonder what the singer was getting at. 

Get it here:

https://minuitmachine.bandcamp.com/album/dont-run-from-the-fire