Top 7 Songs of the Month ~ April 2023 ~ Death by Nature, Vestron Vulture, French Police
I was struck with inspiration for this month’s blog. I’ve been keeping records of my top songs of the month for a long, long time, going back to 2000 (and yet I was only diagnosed with autism last year, what a shock). I originally started it as an answer to the deeply flawed Top 20 lists I would hear on the local rock radio station I listened to. Before 2019 it was relegated to notebooks. I thought it would be interesting, after looking at this month’s list, to look at what I was listening to 20, 15, 10 and 5 years ago. Don’t expect a little essay on each song, but I might provide a bit of context, like where I was in life at that time.
Lately I’ve been really into Spanish-language post-punk, from Central and South America, and California (that counts, right?). It just has this particular gloomy feel to it that I love, distinctive from varieties of post-punk from the US, Western Europe and Russia. Vestron Vulture was my introduction to this style, but I also really love Guerra Fría of Guatemala, and Death by Nature from Los Angeles. I don’t speak Spanish (other than the little bit of linguistic osmosis I picked up from living in California most of my life), but not understanding the lyrics has never stopped me from enjoying music before. But as usual I have a few songs from other parts of the world as well.
Death By Nature ~ I’m Not Real
This is a band from Los Angeles, California is one I just found out about a week ago, and so far I love every single song. This song accurately describes what it’s like to have a bout of Depersonalization/Derealization, and there’s not enough music out there directly about that.
There is another band out there with the same name, so beware. Look for the one spelled in all-caps. I don’t exactly see this song on Bandcamp, but here is their Bandcamp page.
This song seemed like it got a quiet release, I only accidentally stumbled upon it when looking the band up on YouTube. It’s a single released on March 17. It is a melancholy song, not particularly political as the title might suggest. But perhaps it is just about how living and trying to survive in America has become a nightmare.
This song came out in May 2021, and I think I did hear it when it came out, but this is one of those songs that laid dormant for a while and then clawed its way back onto my charts when I listened to it again when going through my YouTube likes and ended up enjoying it greatly. It has a Christian Death sound to it, and is in the deathrock genre. I like deathrock a lot more these days than I did in 2021
Poison Dreams is a band out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and this song is off their EP Faustian Glow.
I hope ACAB doesn’t apply to the French Police because I really like this band. I’ve been hearing more from them in recent months and have gone on a binge of their earlier music. They are not from France, as I initially thought, but Chicago, Illinois. I thought they were following the grand tradition of French coldwave that dates back to the 80s with bands like Little Nemo. If you listen to this song you can see why I was fooled, it has that 80s coldwave sound to it. Very catchy, a little melancholy.
Memory Drops is another Guatemalan band, like Guerra Fría, the other band from there I’ve been listening to. I found this to be a very beautiful song. It came out in January of this year, and translates to “All that Remains”. From what I can gather its kind of a tragic, dreary breakup song, but the tune just really stuck with me.
Out of the goth/goth adjacent bands I know of that are from Armenia, Node seems to be the one with the most reliable output. Aside from the voice sample at the beginning this song is largely instrumental, with a laid back, dark trance vibe to it. I wonder if Node will be in attendance when Lebanon Hanover plays in Yerevan next month? That would be such an awesome concert to go to. Maybe that will inspire other bands too, help invigorate Armenia’s goth scene.
This doesn’t seem to have an official release yet, but you can find their other music on Bandcamp.
This song caught my attention because I was just learning about what a liminal space is when I discovered it. Basically it’s a location that looks uncanny or makes you feel uneasy, characterized by mixed feelings of familiarity and unfamiliarity. Like a playground at night, a house with nothing in it, hallways that seem endless, things like that. It’s kind of popular with the young ones, so I’ve heard. Probably a reaction to the Covid lockdowns. That’s what the song is about too, mentioning a “transitional space” which is another way to define it.
The song came out in December 2022, so it’s still new. I should like to hear more from Another Abyss.
Oops, all Covenant/The Kovenant! It was my High School metal period and I was really into their Nexus Polaris and In Times Before the Light (the 2002 remake) albums.
2008 was a weird time for me musically. I was getting out of metal, hadn’t fully embraced goth yet, and I went into a 1930s jazz period. It was my early 20s, a time of soul searching. I also really liked the Gangs of New York soundtrack that month.
And One had been a mainstay for me for years at this point. The song “Und Wieder” is beautifully hypnotic, really give it a listen if the only song you know from them is “Military Fashion Show”. And for most of the year I was really into Light Asylum and Zombie Girl. “IPC” is still awesome. Really doesn’t feel a decade old.
Now we’re really in “that doesn’t feel like that long ago” territory. My musical tastes were almost what they are today. In the intervening years though, I have only come to understand the song “Medication” even better, with its “I am sad, even though I am on all the meds” chorus.
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