Music Reviews: Goth
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Stream of Passion (SoP): Embrace the Storm |
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Within Temptation: The Silent Force |
| Goth Music Discovery A few years ago... I'd been listening to lots of new music ...seeking something fresh. I wanted music that was less technically focused than the virtuosic progressive groups (I like some progressive aspects, but not losing it's soul in the overly technical showmanship), I wanted music about feelings, the human experience, the shadow-self, desire, passion, meaning and beauty; I wanted an intense, even overwhelming, experience; I wanted to
find music that I could describe as:
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(Dictionary info:
Darkwave, also written as dark wave, is an umbrella term which refers to a
movement that began in the 1980s, coinciding with the popularity of new wave.
Building upon the basic principles of new wave, darkwave evolved through the
addition of dark, thoughtful lyrics and an undertone of sorrow.))
Roots
80's - early gothic rock bands like Bauhaus, The Cure and Cocteau Twins, Black
Sabbath
more recent bands that I discovered and enjoyed: (All European; mostly Dutch and
Finnish bands)
Lacuna Coil
The Gathering
Nightwish (Once!)
After Forever (Dutch)
Epica (Dutch) - genre called Operatic Gothic Metal
Tristania
Sirenia
Leaves’ Eyes
(The U.S. only has a couple of bands pursuing this style:
* mostly just a pale copy of the European Goth/dark metal, Type O Negative has some great songs.. but is overly affected in their
role of "Goth"). Many of the 90's gothic bands used the "growling" voice
which I definitely don't like, so
I've avoided them, but a few of the songs in the groups I listed may have some))
Choices:
I've been through maybe 100 new CDs.. everal that are exceptional.
The very best of the group are the bands:
-Stream of Passion (Dutch)
-Within Temptation (Dutch)
Read my reviews:
Stream of Passion (SoP): Embrace the Storm
Within Temptation: The Silent Force
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= Goth and Gothic ==
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Here's some randomly collected notes on Goth and Gothic..
The original Goths were an Eastern Germanic tribe who played an important role
in the fall of the western Roman Empire. In some circles, the name "Goth" later
became pejorative: synonymous with "barbarian" and the uncultured due to the
then-contemporary view of the fall of Rome and historically inaccurate
depictions of the pagan Gothic tribes during and after the process of
Christianization of Europe. During the Renaissance period in Europe, medieval
architecture was retroactively labeled gothic architecture, and was considered
unfashionable in contrast to the then-modern lines of classical architecture.
In the United Kingdom, by the late 1700s, however, nostalgia for the medieval
period led people to become fascinated with medieval gothic ruins. This
fascination was often combined with an interest in medieval romances, Roman
Catholic religion and the supernatural. Enthusiasts for gothic revival
architecture in the United Kingdom were led by Horace Walpole, and were
sometimes nicknamed "Goths", the first positive use of the term in the modern
period.
Gothic fiction began in the United Kingdom with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by
Horace Walpole. It depended for its effect on the pleasing terror it induced in
the reader, a new extension of literary pleasures that was essentially Romantic.
It is the predecessor of modern horror fiction and is the source of the
connection between "gothic" and the dark and horrific.
Prominent features of gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and
physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic
architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness (especially mad
women), secrets, hereditary curses, persecuted maidens and so on
the term "gothic" became linked with an appreciation of the joys of extreme
emotion, the thrill of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest
for atmosphere. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked
emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations
The term "gothic" came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the
genre dealt with such emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found
its most natural settings in the buildings of this style - castles, mansions,
and monasteries, often remote, crumbling, and ruined. It was a fascination with
this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets), and even
landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists.
Self-parody was a constituent part of the Gothic even from the time of the
genre's inception with Walpole's Otranto.
Goth Music
Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles. Common to all is a
tendency towards a “dark” sound and outlook..
Certain elements in the dark, atmospheric music and dress of the post punk scene
were clearly gothic in this sense. The use of gothic as an adjective in
describing this music and its followers led to the term Goth.
The influence of the gothic novel on the Goth subculture can be seen in numerous
examples of the subculture's poetry and music, though this influence sometimes
came second hand, through the popular imagery of horror films and television.
The Byronic hero, in particular, was a key precursor to the male Goth image,
while Dracula's iconic portrayal by Bela Lugosi appealed powerfully to early
goths. They were attracted by Lugosi's aura of camp menace, elegance and
mystique. Some people even credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's
Dead", with the start of the Goth subculture, though many prior art house
movements also influenced gothic fashion and style. A notable early example was
Siouxsie Sioux, of the musical group Siouxsie and the Banshees. Some members of
Bauhaus were, themselves, fine art students and/or active artists.
The concept of the femme fatale, which appeared in Romantic literature, film
noir, as well as in the gothic novel, went on to become a vital image for female
goths. In cinema, the femme fatale style adopted by silent movie actress Theda
Bara exerted a lasting influence. Bara was nicknamed the vamp, and her first
name was an anagram for "death". She established the look for pale predatory
women in later films, which ultimately influenced the Goth subculture.
Throughout the evolution of the Goth subculture, familiarity with gothic
literature became significant for many goths. Keats, Poe, Baudelaire and other
romantic writers became just as symbolic of the subculture as dressing all in
black.
A newer literary influence on the gothic scene was Anne Rice's re-imagining of
the idea of the vampire. Rice's characters were depicted as struggling with
eternity and loneliness, this with their ambivalent or tragic sexuality had deep
attractions for many Goth readers, making her works very popular in the eighties
through the nineties
Defining an ideology of the gothic subculture is difficult for several reasons.
First is the overwhelming importance of mood for those involved. This is, in
part, inspired by romanticism and neoromanticism. The allure for goths of dark,
mysterious, and morbid imagery and mood lies in the same tradition. The rise of
Romanticism's gothic novel during the 19th century saw feelings of horror being
commercially exploited as a form of mass entertainment, a process continued in
the modern horror film. Balancing this emphasis on mood, the other central
element of the subculture is a conscious sense of camp theatricality or
self-dramatization.
The second impediment to defining a gothic ideology is goth's sometimes
apolitical nature. While individual defiance of social norms was a very risky
business in the nineteenth century, today it is far less socially radical. Thus,
the significance of goth's subcultural rebellion is limited, and it draws on
imagery at the heart of Western culture. Unlike the hippie or punk movements,
the Goth subculture has no pronounced political messages or cries for social
activism. The subculture is marked by its emphasis on individualism, tolerance
for (sexual) diversity, a strong emphasis on creativity, tendency toward
intellectualism, a dislike of social conservatism and a strong tendency towards
cynicism, but even these ideas are not common to all goths. Goth ideology is
based far more on aesthetics than ethics or politics.
However, goths may have political leanings ranging from left-liberal to
anarchist or libertarian, but do not show them as part of a cultural identity.
Instead, political affiliation is seen as a matter of personal conscience.
Unlike punk, there are few clashes with political affiliation and being "Goth".
Anne Williams proposes three new premises: that Gothic is "poetic," not
novelistic, in nature; that there are two parallel Gothic traditions, Male and
Female; and that the Gothic and the Romantic represent a single literary
tradition.
Building on the psychoanalytic and feminist theory of Julia Kristeva, Williams
argues that Gothic conventions such as the haunted castle and the family curse
signify the fall of the patriarchal family; Gothic is therefore "poetic" in
Kristeva's sense because it reveals those "others" most often identified with
the female. Williams identifies distinct Male and Female Gothic traditions: In
the Male plot, the protagonist faces a cruel, violent, and supernatural world,
without hope of salvation. The Female plot, by contrast, asserts the power of
the mind to comprehend a world which, though mysterious, is ultimately sensible.
By showing how Coleridge and Keats used both Male and Female Gothic, Williams
challenges accepted notions about gender and authorship among the Romantics.
Lucidly and gracefully written, Art of Darkness alters our understanding of the
Gothic tradition, of Romanticism, and of the relations between gender and genre
in literary history.
"On the Supernatural in Poetry", by the late Mrs. Ann Radcliff
"The Gothic aesthetic links unspeakable horror with beauty, delight, and
sublimity and the attractions "
"The Gothicists for all of their outlandish oddities were in effect among the
most fruitful literary explorers of the psyche."
In Burke's "Enquiry," one can see a nascent fascination with landscape, mystery,
and sensation that would find its flowering in the Gothic and Romantic movements
of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His insistent break with earlier
philosophers who combined aesthetics and morality is a serious challenge to moral
philosophy with regard to art and Taste.