Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Top 8 Songs of the Month ~ November 2022 ~ SDWTD, Manticore Kiss, Desmond Doom, Pitch After Dark

 Another month down, edging closer toward the darkest time of the year. And my area is getting hit with a surprise late season hurricane. Hurricane Nicole, ain’t climate change fun? Well, even a category 1 is basically just an extra windy storm with a name, I’m not too worried, for now. Today has been a weird day as a result, though. Everything’s closed, no one is on the road, I had to get my kid out of school early, my hat won’t stay on my head. It’s going to suck for places that got flooded in Hurricane Ian six weeks ago, but fortunately for me that’s not my area. We are getting hit head on with it though. 


My battle with chronic pain and seasonal depression continues, although I’ve been doing better than I was in late September to mid October. My doctor got me on better pain meds, I think that’s why my back has been hurting a bit less. I’ve had good days and bad days the last couple weeks. At least until I got some steroid injections done on my lower back on Monday, now it hurts like hell again. Yay. But that’s supposed to eventually help with the pain. It always takes about three to four days for the pain from the actual injections to go away enough for me to tell if they worked, that’s how it was for my tailbone injections anyway. Halloween also has a way of lifting my spirits, most years anyway (the exception was 2020), and it did this year too. Anyway, my mood dictates what music I gravitate toward, which makes it relevant to my monthly music review/diary. This month we have a few new bands, a few bands I hadn’t heard from in a while are back, a random song from the 1960s I just discovered, and our old standby Slow Danse with the Dead.


Slow Danse with the Dead ~ Obsession  




So soon after their previous EP last summer, which was one of my favorite releases from them ever, Slow Danse with the Dead is back again with a four track EP, due out officially on November 11. I already pre-ordered it, and got this song. I feel like it’s kind if a continuation of “Strangers in the Dark”, with the lyrical reference to the mind being filled with chaos in both songs. My mind is also filled with chaos, which is why I love these songs. It’s wonderful being a fan of a band that regularly puts out new music all the time like Slow Danse with the Dead, I don’t know how he does it. Just an endless well of inspiration.


Check it out here:


Manticore Kiss ~ Aboulia (Joy Thieves Remix)


I love love love the original studio version of this song, which I reviewed when it first came out, and the remix does it justice. It maintains the same energy as the original while adding something new, and making the song fresh again. It’s a Phantom of the Opera-esque song about being so depressed you don’t want to move or speak. Here’s hoping Manticore Kiss comes out with some more new music like this soon. 


Here it is:



Desmond Doom ~ Heart-Shaped Box


Desmond Doom has been tiding his fans over with style mashups since his album Surf Goth came out. I really like his most recent one, which is Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” sung in the style of The Cure, namely in the style of their song “A Forest”. His vocals may sound a bit like an exaggeration of Robert Smith (I’m reminded of Al Jourgensen’s fake accent in early Ministry) but just as a song based on its own merits I really think it works. And I for one would love to see anyone do more crossovers of grunge and goth. Two of my favorite genres. 

It’s not on Bandcamp (I’ve heard they get weird about covers), but you can check out his other music there:



Vanilla Fudge ~ Season of the Witch


It’s very seldom that I find music from the 1960s that I actually like, I’ll admit. Most music from that decade is too happy-go-lucky for me. But when I do find a song I like, it’s usually the weird experimental songs, like for instance “Caledonia” by CroMagnon, a 1969 song that is one of the earliest instances of harsh rasping vocals in a song, predating black metal by decades. I wish I knew how to dig this kind of stuff up though. It’s easier to find underground stuff from the 80s and 90s. But I found another song like that, this one from 1968. 

I heard it because I was listening to a goth radio show, Under the Floorboards on X-Ray FM in Portland, Oregon, via Radio Garden. It was their Halloween show, I wanted to be old school and record the whole show on a blank cassette with an aux cord from my tablet to my boombox (first time in over twenty years I recorded an entire radio show on a tape). And after the show they have a classic rock show called Heavy Metal Sewing Circle,where they try to play the more obscure rock music, and this song played. I was captivated. I couldn’t stop listening to all nine minutes of the song. It’s dark, eerie, and psychedelic. It’s almost kind of proto-goth. That tune on the pipe organ just keeps playing over and over in my head. I’ve heard this isn’t the original version of the song, which was done by a band called Donavan, but the original doesn’t sound nearly as creepy. And as far as I’ve heard Vanilla Fudge doesn’t have another song quite like his either. They could have jump-started goth early if they did.



Pitch After Dark ~ Coexist


Pitch After Dark came back on Halloween with a new album, Dark and Severe, which includes not only new music but remastered versions of all their previous tracks, which really are an improvement, the originals sound more like demo versions by comparison now. That’s the great thing about being goth on Halloween, a lot of bands try to shoot for Halloween album releases, you might hear from some bands you haven’t heard from in a while. 

Pitch After Dark, a band out of Nevada, first came to my attention with the song “Trapped Inside”, the perfect Covid quarantine anthem. And that song sounds even better on Dark and Severe. This song was the first of the new ones to catch my attention, with its poignant lyrics about coexistence and acceptance. Reminds me of the situation in the Caucasus region, like many songs do. 




North Pope ~ I’m Numb


The singer of North Pope actually messaged me after my last blog. Love it when a singer notices me! I had briefly seen their music shared by some of the goth music YouTube channels I follow, but I was inspired to do a deep listen to their album Strange Times, released last August, and I highly recommend it. Quite a few of them felt poignant to me, the album has a theme of weltschmerz throughout, lamenting on the state of the world and humanity. North Pope is one of the recent bands that continue the proud tradition of French coldwave, a particular genre that France has excelled in since the 1980s





Blood Dance ~ Halloween 



This was a fun track to listen to during the lead up to Halloween this year. It was released as a single on October 6 by Mexican darkwave group Blood Dance. It’s just an all around fun song for goths to revel in their favorite time of the year. I’ll listen to it throughout the year too, because Halloween never really ends for me. 




Soma & Seraphim ~ Bow to Love



This song is off a compilation that was released on the 5th of this month, Midwest Gothic, featuring bands from the midwest United States such as from Ohio and Kentucky. I used to be surprised that there were goth bands from that area, but after finding goth bands from Peru, China and Armenia, I can safely say they’re pretty much everywhere. 

Anyway, Soma & Seraphim are from Dayton, Ohio. It’s been hard digging up anything about them, but they must be brand new. I found their YouTube channel, became their third subscriber, and their videos were all posted today. If this band gets big I get to be all hipster over it and say I liked them before they were popular! Go give this band some more YouTube subscribers.

The compilation:


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