Tag: Negative Gain

It’s Hard To Believe The Sounds and Shadows Darkscene Singles Chart Has Been Around A Whole Year

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One year ago in October I was discussing with Hide, do charts still matter in 2021? What is the point in modern times and do the current charts accurately represent what our scene values? It was a pretty good debate discussing pros and cons. In the end I decided to try letting the wise and tasteful members of our Sounds and Shadows group. Comprised of Djs, Reviewers, Bands, Promotors, and Super Fans that are the lifeblood of this scene. No pay for play. Just a simple vote on what music you are hearing that makes you feel something. I wasn’t sure this would be something I would continue to feel the value of. 12 months later, I have come to really appreciate what this chart brings to the scene. The way that amazing music gets recognized here that doesn’t find it’s way to other charts. As always these are all singles released in October and voted on by our group members.

  1. Panic Priest – AngelSteal – Negative Gain
  2. Object X – Out Of Place –
  3. IAMTHESHADOW – The Wide Starlight – Cold Transmission Music
  4. The Burying Kind – In Black And White
  5. Dread Risks – Extinction Form – Brutal Resonance
  6. Dog Tablet – Ashes –
  7. Morgue VVitch X Allicorn – Higher
  8. Actors + Bootblacks – Boys keep Swinging (Bowie Cover) – Artoffact Records
  9. Carrion – Count The Scars – Produkt 42
  10. Mona Mur – Dream Rider – Give/Take

Panic Priest – ANGELSTEAL – Jack has a gorgeous and razor streaming style between the cracks of the darkscene. Warm crooning Baritone, waterfall backdrop synths, and lightning crackle guitar leads. Panic Priest always needs more recognition and having this single as number 1 is a fitting start. People need to start recognizing Jack as one of the top voices in the modern scene.

ANGELSTEAL | Panic Priest | Midnight Mannequin Records (bandcamp.com)

Object X – Out of Place – From Reno Nevada a band I was not familiar with but shot to #2 on this chart. I really liked the single, a deep resonant poetry in the vocals and Nick Cave style organic ghost story style. I really love the vocal harmony here, as well as the horror movie samples from Bela Lugosi’s 1931 Dracula. The space opera bending guitars add a wonderful tension to the narrative. This track was a wonderful surprise I didn’t know I needed.

Out of Place | Object X (bandcamp.com)

IAMTHESHADOW – The Wide Starlight – I talk a lot about the expectational song writing glory and passion of Portuguese band IAMTHESHADOW. I will always buy anything Pedro puts out on Cold Transmission unheard, because he has never let me down . What always astounds me is how different every new album sounds. This new single is such a contrast to “Pitchblack”. It is expansive, hopeful, and dynamic with the soul and accessibility of Psychedelic Furs. A band that is always taking you on a fresh emotional journey.

The Wide Starlight | IAMTHESHADOW (bandcamp.com)

The Burying Kind – In Black and White – I love everything about this release. The quality of the song writing and musicianship. The method acting delivery of the lyrics. When a band can get lost in the emotion of their own release it is a powerful thing that cannot be faked. This album is up for top releases of the year. This single will transport you places.

In Black and White | The Burying Kind (bandcamp.com)

Dread Risks – Extinction Form – New Video single from our favorite Texas DoomDustrial band. It’s hard, mean, creeping danger, which culminates in a sledgehammer delivery of broken pieces and mysterious questioning. This is a band I really need to see live.

(36) Dread Risks – Extinction Form (Live) – Elysium Austin, September 16, 2022 – YouTube

Dogtablet – Ashes – Industrial legend Martin King who i recently had the pleasure of meeting in person at Cold Waves with this tantalizing delay deep space exploration single from the new EP. I always love tracks of this project where Martin lets his own voice shine. Every new song for this project feels like a hound off the chain running free, because these expert songsmiths have nothing left to prove and are releasing abstract concepts without limits.

Ashes | Dogtablet (bandcamp.com)

Morgue VVitch x ΔLLICΘRN – Higher – New Collab of ethereal witchtrance crystal towers. Tara’s climbing vocal style paired with the sleek sky climbing synth structures and a glorious blend of dream inspiring fantasy. Two great artists leaving me hungry for what is next.

Higher | Morgue VVitch x ΔLLICΘRN | Allicorn (bandcamp.com)

Actors + Bootblacks – Boys Keep Swinging – What is not to love about two of the top names in modern darkscene teaming up to cover a David Bowie deep cut while producing a gorgeous gender fluid video. This video is absolutely staggering. If somehow you don’t know about these bands, do yourself a favor and open up to the glorious new wave of modern postpunk

Carrion – COUNT THE SCARS – Wonderful crunchy horror synth from Hide Tepes. This new single is mixed and mastered by Mike Nolan in Michigan and adds a refinement and focus to the brilliant artistic expression that Hide hurtles with reckless abandon into everything he does. A storm of broken shards raining down.

COUNT THE SCARS | Carrion (bandcamp.com)

Mona Mur – Dream Rider – Another single off the latest album of the Berlin electronic punk icon. Sparkling and jagged like a skiff hurtling through the desert. I love the purposeful force of this track, the way it doesn’t fit in any box but it’s own. This whole album is a modern classic. I did a recent interview with Mona and it gave me a fresh appreciation for her contribution to the modern scene.

Dream Rider | Mona Mur (bandcamp.com)

This chart has been growing every month for a year. If you have a darkscene single release in November or know someone who does, make sure you add it to the Sounds and Shadows Facebook group, and support underground music.

In A Dark Place And Searching For Distraction, What Sounds Took My Imagination To The Adventure Place?

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With a new kitten, a sick elder cat, and Rachel’s bday I haven’t devoted much time to writing reviews. So it is time to start catching up on the giant stack of releases I let get away from me. I’ve got a few albums here I have been waiting on a long time. Please enjoy and comment below what albums you are listening to you think I should hear.

Hexheart – Funeral Flowers – Seatle WA SynthBard Jasyn Bangert has a June release of cybernetic serotonin pumped straight into your brain. I love the “Upstairs At Erics” bopping light synth and nostalgic warms. These tracks wrap around you like a favorite sweater. The AI captivating vocal effects are a fresh note contrasting the synthpop throwback. Every track feels like a cult 80’s film you are the only one who remembers.

Funeral Flowers | Hexheart (bandcamp.com)

Top Tracks: (bottom of) Below – This track is so dynamic without changing tempo or volume. The bursting fountains happen with a slow rolling subtilty. The vocals hold a fascinating mystery. I wish I could make out the lyrics more clearly, but the electronic whisper draws me in closer.

Erase Yesterday – This track really optimizes everything great about this album. A brilliant single can do that, bring all the tiny differences and brushstrokes of a cohesive record and shine the brightest aspects into one track. This song is bright/dark, fresh/nostalgic, organic and synthetic. Always running the duality in darting motions. This opening track paints the world and makes me excited to drive into it.

October Burns Black – Two Worlds Collide – I’m a little behind the mark reviewing this June 24, 2022 release from traditional goth stars October Burns Black. Goth is in it’s Rennaissance but things have fractured into sub genres so much it has become hard to even keep track of what goth means. OBB have turned the ebony run away train back to the core of guitar based gothic rock. James Tramel who plays bass for midwest goth legends The Wake brings that smooth void rumble that drives these tracks with an authentic old school precision. Rod Hanna ( Khaf’ji) gives a rich and rough baritone that harkens to Eldrich with a bit of broken glass danger. One of the things about early gothic rock was the way it had a western percussion gallop to the minor tones, it was an energy that was always running away without control. This is the magic that Lars, Tommy, and Gord have captured in the masterclass guitar of this album. We can have open hearts for a new infinite prism gothic rainbow, while remembering the roots of what made us fall in love with goth rock. Two Worlds Collide is an album that remembers. That whispers of forgotten truth.

Condemned | October Burns Black (bandcamp.com)

Top Tracks: Regress – I love the blistering Cult drum napalm that Ollson uncorks for this song. It has a furious punk snarl cadence and some really subtle guitar overlays. It’s tight, nasty, and full of remorse. These riffs go straight to the vein.

Condemned – This song feels like a Highlander epic swordfight that ends with beheading. The guitars have an air support bagpipe rise and Hanna’s vocals find a perfect groove of chanting percussion. Snarling savagery and desperation with crackling energy that feels faster than it moves.

Rod Hanna – Vocals
Lars Kappeler – Guitar
Tommy Olsson – Guitar
James Tramel – Bass
Simon Rippin – Drums

Additional guitars on tracks 1, 4, 6 and 8 – Gordon Young

Produced and mixed by Simon Rippin
Mastered by Gordon Young

Batavia – Batavia and their Friends Forever – Jacksonville Florida based electro chaos band continue to amaze me with every new release. This new release packs a tinted window red striped van with guest talent and pushed the pedal to the floor. Opening with a filthy crooning version of The Jesus Lizard was an inspired tone setter for this caper. Ed and Terri Cripps are a couple that expertly blend relationship and art until it feels like communication with it’s seamless delivery. Some remixes, some covers, just an explosive energy of fundustrial fury! Daddybear, Dread Risks, Gothsicles, Decent News, Syrinx, all see the writing that Batavia are poised to explode and wanted to jump on the rocket. I love the concept; I love the fact they took bold chances with the covers. I mean covering NIN Wish is a big brass balls move and they pull it off. Batavia has moved to my by every release sight unseen until they let me down list.

I honestly have no favorite track: You will not be let down if you turn it to 11 and just let it play

Batavia and their Friends Forever | Batavia (bandcamp.com)

hororhaus – La Pisadeira – New York State terror texture electronica blending processed religious imagery and layered ethereal sampling. I found this artists through the Sounds and Shadows Facebook group and they impressed me with a unique vision and intense focus. Scott Harris has an elevated ear for sonic texture that inflicts feelings of unease and tension. Much like The Goblin’s of Italian horror mastery these songs are a lurking dread in the mind of the listener. Sounds that conjure emotion and spin a yarn of doom. It gets me hopeful for where this project develops.

La Pisadeira | hororhaus (bandcamp.com)

Morningstvr – The New Salem – Chicago BlasphemeDustrial cult sonic artist takes the pageantry of an electronic cathedral then turns 180 degrees into an unholy void of bitter darkness. I love the slow black and white film flicker tempo the growling Peter Steel frozen metal edge to the vocal delivery. A shadow robed ritual which twists and turns from track to track as you descend a filthy staircase of Pandemonium.

Favorite Track: The New Salem – I love when the title track leads the charge of the overall theme. I love all of the tiny atmospheric touches the whispered chanting is fright evoking fascination. Poet nightmare fuel for a new generation.

▶︎ The New Salem | Morningstvr | Blvsphemy Records (bandcamp.com)

Golden Apes – From The Sky – Criminally underrated post punk giants from Berlin. A band that needs to be added to the conversation of Actors, Bootblacks, Twin Tribes, Creux Lies as the next wave of history altering lifeblood of this scene. This is music to make your heart race with the driving guitar syncopation and boulder chasing you down a tunnel baselines. Peer Lebrecht has such a distinctive voice that resonates to hold your attention in a single moment. It’s always such a tour of geography and human experience when you listen to a Golden Apes album. “From The Sky” is no exception as it leaps with alien speed from landscape to landscape on a biodiverse unknown world.

Favorite Tracks: You can’t go wrong here. This six song EP is a journey. One worth taking.

A New Days Dawn – The overlay transition at the beginning of this is an absolute masterclass in song writing. Peer’s vocals are frantic and tinged with mania. This track has so much going on it is difficult to believe how efficient and powerful it strikes. Like one of those truly great movies I could watch 100 times and pick out a new moment with every viewing.

From The Sky | Golden Apes (bandcamp.com)

Kevorkian Death Cycle – Injection: 01 –

Injection: 01 | Kevorkian Death Cycle (bandcamp.com) California based Dancedustrial artist with a catalog going back to the early 90s have a new 4 song EP This team includes a family feel of collaboration. I’m overcome with excitement that none other than Roger Jarvis (Negative Gain Records) is one half of the original duo. I’m also left wondering if any of them spent time in Michigan for the Kevorkian reference. The music also has a Detroit techno energy clashing with Industrial and darktrance.

Favorite Track: Spring Heel Jack – I am always a sucker for folk lore and this red cap rampage industrial banger featuring the story of the British murder fairy Jack is a must hear. Filthy beats on top of boot stomp percussion and hurled metal shaving vocals.

Words: Ryan Gribbin
Music: Roger Jarvis, Rob Robinson, Sean Whitman
Mixing/Mastering: Rob Robinson
Artwork Concept/Design: Ryan Gribbin and Sally Helena

Injection: 01 | Kevorkian Death Cycle (bandcamp.com)

Electronic Substance Abuse Roll Out Opulent New Record ‘Designer Carnage’

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Electronic Substance Abuse (ESA) are among a short list of modern industrial acts that are consistently great, particularly with their most recent releases Burial 10, Eat Their Young / The Scorn EP, and the single “I Detach” coming within the last two years. Between the concussive snares, the powerful production, and the wide range of vocals – whether they’re provided by mastermind Jamie Blacker or by guests such as Caitlin Stokes of Corlyx – ESA is a project that rarely, if ever, misses. 

It is with this sort of reputation that the project sets forth its most recent studio effort, Designer Carnage, released on Negative Gain Productions on Valentine’s Day. Using buzzwords and phrases such as “modern decadence” and “be the envy of your peers,” the marketing for this album is on-the-nose anticonsumerism done ESA style. As part of the pre-orders for the record, they offered ESANCE, a line of cosmetics and wellness products that will shock your system and lead you into the new year looking and feeling your best, price tags be damned.

ESA might best be described as “progressive industrial,” insofar as the influences and the backbone of the album may change from track to track, or even multiple times within a track. This album’s opener, “Laudanum Dance,” is a prime example of this. It starts off with a build towards an aggressive, “sweep the premises” tone. The first half of this eight-minute saga feels like a nod to The Prodigy and the grungiest of UK house, before giving way to a dizzying piano solo by Frederic Scarfone. By minute six, we get a marching, stomping beat that lets the power this opening track has carry on through the ending.

We then get a dance floor destroyer in “One Missed Call,” whose first round of vocals come from a sampled voicemail from a very disgruntled woman. On one hand, there is something to be said here about “anything you say can and will be used against you,” particularly with the lines:

“This is a message to stop you from getting far

Because no-one knows what I know and you’ll never be a star.“

It’s a damn fun track, and it’s no secret why it was one of the tracks released ahead of the full record.

Then we get to the powerful, wub-heavy “I Detach,” which we got as a single last May. The jazzy little interlude might be a bit of whiplash for those unprepared, but it does help break things up with this limb-ripper of a track. The title track comes next, and if Jamie doesn’t play “I Detach” followed by this, I don’t know what he’s doing. These two songs are the perfect one-two punch and compliment each other so well. 

“Disruption Only” stands out for a few reasons, namely the symphonic and orchestral elements. The tempo gets turned up, but the three-note melody keeps things in EBM territory, albeit with a twist. It is a simple number, but it makes seven minutes (6:49, to be exact) feel like nothing. During the next song, “Come and Find Me,” I came to realize why there were so many big band, jazz-type moments in this album. Designer Carnage has a theme of advertisement, of unabashed entrepreneurship, and back in the day, commercials, especially radio or television, were whimsical while also a bit insidious. It is in this aggressive marketing (the industrial/EBM elements), paired with the whimsy (the big band interludes) where we get the duality of advertising.

Or maybe Jamie just makes good goddamn music and I’m reading into things too much. 

“Hyena” is classic ESA, with aggressive percussive elements and an overall tone that will turn a ravegoer’s brain to mush in the most fun way possible. This is perhaps the most club-friendly song on the record next to “I Detach.” “Whom Then Shall I Fear?” features the lyrical flow of Pee Wee Pimpin, and man, does his voice do something for this track. His flow is smooth, the low voice almost chanting over the production. It’s swagger but not to the point of self-parody. It’s aggressive to the point of believability. Burial 10 had its share of industrial hip-hop moments, but Designer Carnage has a hell of one with this track.

“Vast Accept” is purely hypnotic, the kind of track to put on and lose oneself to. The staccato strings and the glimmering synths over a pounding bass make for a dream of a song. The album’s closer “Saturnalia” may divide some folks, as it leans back on Blacker’s roots in the extreme metal scene. If you like the idea of industrial black metal (and lord knows I do), you’re going to love it. The first minute plus is blast beat o’clock, while things go in a more electro direction as the track progresses, all the way to an acoustic interlude around the halfway mark. We circle back to the black metal beginnings of the track as the curtain falls on this epic, spanning closer.

Is this Jamie throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks? If so, very little is falling off.
Surround thyself in only the finest of Designer Carnage by streaming and/or purchasing the album:

Astari Nite Unveil NITE’s Pixie Remix of “All Else is a Curse”

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The muted energy and drab majesty of post-punk is still very much alive, and Miami’s Astari Nite are at its forefront. A relatively new act, the band’s first album Here Lies, released in May of 2020, was a stirring exercise in gothic rock, headed up by its singles “Dearly Beloved” and “Capulet Loves Montague.” While the band’s sophomore full-length has yet to be announced, 2021 began with a new single in “All Else Is A Curse,” followed by “Pocket Full of Posies” this summer. To cap off this calendar year, Astari Nite have given us a remix of the former, with the help of NITE.

Where the original mix of the song is more guitar-driven, letting open strings ring out, the NITE remix is a club track through and through, with more synth passages, a slightly quickened pace, and more prominent percussion. The kick drum comes through to drive the chorus forward, giving more of a bounce to this haunting and contemplative track. All told, it is a solid remix, and definitely something I could see filling a dance floor, though with a bit more energy than the old standard that is the goth two-step.

Best of all, the remix is available for free on Bandcamp (or pay what you want), so stream and/or download the Pixie remix of “All Else is a Curse” by Astari Nite and NITE here:


And if you haven’t heard the original mix from earlier this year, stream that here:

Altar of Progress by Gencab

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With the final Negative Gain Productions release of the year, Philadelphia’s GENCAB has a winner on its hands. Altar of Progress has all the makings of a club DJ staple: a catchy, well-produced banger with lush keyboard melodies. The lyrics have that certain singalong quality that makes a song memorable, although the vocals are buried so deep in the mix of single version (from the forthcoming GENCAB album, Thoughts Beyond Words), I almost couldn’t make them out at first.

As I type this I’m on my third listen. The sound is so layered that I make out new things each time I listen. There’s a lot going on here. And the tempo changes break up the song nicely. It never stays in one place long enough to get tedious. I especially love the warm synth tone during the breakdowns.

And if that weren’t sexy enough, Aesthetic Perfection provides a remix that’s so hard-hitting, it’s easy to imagine a dancefloor full of rivetheads stomping away blissfully to the beat. It’s more straightforward than the single version, but don’t confuse straightforward with pedestrian. The keyboard lushness is stripped away in favor of rhythmic loops, a driving bass thump and a clever interplay of vocal effects.

If Altar Of Progress isn’t getting played by DJs looking to pump up the club with a new sound, it would be a criminal oversight.

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https://gencab.bandcamp.com/album/altar-of-progress

https://ngpofficial.bandcamp.com/

https://aestheticperfection.bandcamp.com/