Top 7 Songs of the Month ~ October 2021/Սահմի 4514 ~ Carnal Machinery, Node, Slow Danse With the Dead, Скубут
October, the gothiest month of the year. A lot of bands purposely time their releases for this month, especially around Halloween (and those I will probably cover a month from now). And as usual, I’ve not only been listening to new releases, but old classics that I’ve heard for the first time. On the side I’ve also gone on a deep dive into 90s grunge too, chiefly Alice in Chains, but I decided to leave that off the list since those bands get enough attention I think. But they managed to indirectly show up on this list anyway, as you’ll see. Here are some songs I think you should check out if you haven’t already heard them.
Carnal Machinery ~ Voices
Happening upon a chance livestream was what got me into this song. I’d first heard the track “Twilight Zone” from Carnal Machinery sometime late last year, but hearing more is what prompted me to check out their album Cluster A, which debuted this past July. Carnal Machinery is the solo act of Jacques Saph of Helsinki, Finland, also of the band Virgin in Veil. He began this solo project last year in 2020, while his band was incapacitated by the pandemic and unable to tour. This track is about the state of being schizophrenic and having voices speaking in your mind. It’s an aggressive electronic infusion of darkwave and deathrock, which reminds me stylistically of the bands Silent Em and Buzz Kull, other favorites of mine.
Node surprised me again with another upload on YouTube just recently. Node was one of the Armenian goth bands I discovered over the summer along with Jrimurmur and No Man Cry, who made my list this past July with the song “Infection”. They are very reminiscent of Boy Harsher and SYZYGYX. Node’s songs tend to be on the longer side, as evidenced by this song, over nine minutes long. The lyrics consist of a catchy rhyme about colors that wouldn’t be out of place in a children’s book, but that makes it all the more fun. “I’m learning all my colors, I’m really very smart, I put the colors in my head I know them all by heart”. She wisely never tries to rhyme anything with orange or purple. Some of the rhymes are a bit of a stretch though, like “If I were the color brown, I would be a chocolate town”. How can you be an entire town? I can almost guarantee English is not their first language. I always find that charming, though.
As of yet they only have one album out on Bandcamp, Thought Infection, released late last year. They aren’t the only band in the world called “Node” either, so when tracking them down make sure they’re the one from Yerevan, Armenia. Perhaps this track will be part of a future release, but if you want to follow up on the band you can find them here:
The CD release of Slow Danse With the Dead’s newest album Babble of Despair, which I had been awaiting with bated breath, finally happened on October 1st. A very limited run, apparently, but I was able to get one. There are still a few left as of this writing. It is also on cassette for the exact same price, although that seems to have sold out now. I hadn’t bought a new CD in forever so I decided to go with that this time, as much as I love cassettes. It makes it easier for me to build my mixtapes anyway, as these songs will likely end up on one of my blank cassettes as soon as the CD comes in the mail. It would be easier at this point to list the songs from the album that haven’t been on my monthly top songs lists these past few months. Lately it’s been a close tie between this song and “Hate You” for me, but the one that is still my favorite song on the whole album would be the title track “Babble of Despair”, which I covered in August.
The song “Cold Caress” is about someone or something with a cold grip, dragging the singer down by the throat into an “endless realm”. It’s probably metaphorical, I’m guessing for depression or some other mental illness. Only the singer, Johnny Montoya, knows for sure though.
Forever Grey is among my favorite bands these days, but I am admittedly still working my way through their discography. This song, “Arctic Flower”, is the one song that rivals the beauty of “Cathedral of Hailstone” for me, with the same bleak, icy energy to it. A perfect song to herald the winter in with (and in Florida, a way for me to pretend I live somewhere cold). It’s a beautiful song, bringing to mind images of arctic frozen tundra during early spring when the flowers start to rise up out of the snow and blossom. It would be a very romantic thing to call someone your arctic flower, someone who cheers you up when you’re at your darkest.
Stop smoking that cigarette, you’ll ruin your nice voice! Anyway, getting past the obligatory PSA, Скубут (Skubut), my favorite Austrian/Russian post-punk band (not that there are many), recently released a music video for “Tочка кипения”, which translates to “Boiling Point”. This is the first track on their album Сгублен, which released last June. The video gave me reason to revisit this song. This will be the third time they’ve shown up on my lists; not sure why I’m counting with this band, but maybe it’s because I’ve lost count with Slow Danse With the Dead’s monthly inclusions. Real talk though; doesn’t the singer in this video look like he’s cosplaying as the Doomer from all those memes?
He’s got the cigarette and everything. I mean I guess the Doomer doesn’t have his hood up over his head and beanie, but still, otherwise it’s a dead ringer. Actually toward the end of the video when he’s with his girlfriend the singer does wear just a beanie without the hood up. I wonder if it was on purpose. Maybe he’s trying extra hard to make it onto those Russian Doomer Music playlists. This is peak doomer music. No wonder I’m fond of it.
Sintipon threw me through a bit of a loop when I researched them, I have to say. To track them down I had to go to a different side of the internet from what I’m used to. I kept coming upon a Russian dance pop group, while this song that came up randomly on YouTube sounds like your typical synthpop or darkwave that you would hear in a gothic nightclub. I thought that couldn’t be right. And on their Bandcamp page, which is very sparse and has had no update since 2016, the album this track is from is nowhere to be seen. But upon digging deeper and finding them on VK.com, which is basically Russian Facebook, I confirmed that there is in fact only one Sintipon, a husband and wife duo from Moscow, who made all the music I was finding. I eventually found the album on a site called Qobuz. So I accidentally liked some dance pop. I have to remind myself that Russian dance pop is very different from American pop music. I want to say “better than” instead of “very different from”, but that’s an opinion, not an objective fact. Anyway, I’m not good at identifying genres, I guess, maybe it isn’t really goth. Still catchy.
Now that I’ve done all the legwork give them a listen, and here’s where you can find more:
I’ve been listening to more from this band, ever since hearing “Black Cherry”, and I like what I’ve heard. This track is off their album While I Disappear, which came out in early 2016. It has a very different, darker sound from “Black Cherry”, more like coldwave. I would compare it to Forever Grey’s music. For some reason I like that really low droning sound that comes up a few times throughout the song. You’ll know what I mean if you listen to it.
How timely, when I’ve been on an Alice in Chains kick for the past three months, for someone to come out with a darkwave cover of “Would?”. It’s always a dangerous prospect to cover a song that so many people know, but I think Nite pulls it off well. As is true of most covers, it succeeds because they aren’t trying to replicate the original beat for beat, nor do they try to mimic Layne Staley’s vocals, but they put their own spin on it. Nite is comprised of twin brothers Kyle and Myles Mendez, based out of Texas. Their other music also has synthwave and dreampop leanings. It’s their own unique sound.
Anyway, when is someone going to put together an Alice in Chains tribute album with goth bands, like those Metallica ones from 20+ years ago? My wallet is ready.
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