These folks either wrote reviews that appear on the site or wrote for Trouser Press magazine. If anyone listed below cares to E-mail us with a link you’d like added, just let us know. And ditto if anyone is AWOL from this list. Grant AldenDavid AntrobusJem AswadTroy J. AugustoMichael AzerradCary BakerMichael BakerEmily BeckerSeth BenderJohn BergstromArt…
Just as the theatrically minded LA punk scene was beginning to give rise to such morbidly themed outfits as 45 Grave and the Flesh Eaters, an androgynous teenaged street performer named Rozz Williams (né Roger Painter) founded Christian Death, one of the most prolific, enduring and beloved gothic acts of all time. Few groups have…
Andrew Farriss wrote or co-wrote (with Michael Hutchence) nearly every hit song that made INXS one of the most successful acts of the 1980s and 1990s. INXS called it quits in 2012. Farriss has since reinvented himself as a country singer.
With a huge box set retrospective and a fired-up new solo album, Bob Mould is living proof that old punks never die.
Thurston Moore talks about his new album, By the Fire, his songwriting process, surviving the indie rock lifestyle, playing for 200,000 people and more.
With 2020 being the 40th anniversary of the band’s celebrated debut, Crocodiles, we thought it would be a good time to check in with the band’s founding guitarist.
Edinburgh-born singer/guitarist/pianist Mike Scott formed the Waterboys in London, singing bombastic folky rock derived in equal parts from U2, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. On The Waterboys (and its five-song American condensation, later supplanted by a belated issue of the entire LP), Scott, saxophonist Anthony Thistlethwaite, an organist and various rhythm players squeeze every ounce…
Liverpool’s Rosetta Stone gained widespread popularity in the gothic scene with a highly melodic, danceable interpretation of gloom. Singer/guitarist Porl King, guitarist Porl Young, bassist Karl North and the trio’s drum machine maintain classic goth’s darkly mysterious and sensual qualities, but deliver the music with an unorthodox upbeat spirit. Adrenaline‘s ten tracks feature strong, memorable…
After Bauhaus, singer Peter Murphy joined Mick Karn (ex-Japan) and a no-name drummer to form Dalis Car, whose one album mixed Japan’s sensuous sound with Bauhaus’ obsequious lyrical constructs. As a mellifluous noise, The Waking Hour is fine, if a bit heavy on the bass; dig any deeper, however, and what you get is a…
Barry Galvin (aka Bari-Bari; guitars, bass, keyboards), David Glass (drums) and Johann Schumann (bass) played in Christian Death in the first half of the ’80s (Glass even longer); in the following decade, enlisting a vocalist aptly named Christianna, they formed Mephisto Walz, a band that has little in common with their past gothic lives. The…
Formed in London in the early ’80s by Welsh identical twins Michael and Jay Aston, Gene Loves Jezebel flaunted a daring, alluring combination of new wave’s melodic energy and gothic rock’s dark sensuality. The band further differentiated itself from the pack with the brothers’ unconventional singing style (a bizarre mixture of yelps, screams, howls and…
Elyria, Faith & the Muse’s contribution to the Southern California goth scene, proves it worthy of a more careful listen than most of the band’s black-shrouded peers. Founders Monica Richards (ex-Strange Boutique) and William Faith (who has played in such leading acts as Christian Death and Sex Gang Children) skillfully combine haunting romanticism with Celtic…
Wales-to-Los-Angeles transplant Michael Aston cited the usual “creative differences” when he quit the glammy, likable-but-mindless Gene Loves Jezebel in 1990, leaving fans to wonder what musical direction the singer would follow in his new project, a quartet called Edith Grove: back to his gothic roots? Maybe a move into less stylized territory? Nah, the slick,…
San Francisco’s Xorcist (actually just Peter Stone, who goes by the name “Bat”) specializes in “torture tech,” the most brutal, unrelenting form of industrial music. Damned Souls would make a fine soundtrack to any Clive Barker film; death and destruction imagery pops up all over the place, wanting nothing more than to scare the water…
The Wake does its best to modernize Bauhaus/Sisters of Mercy-style goth and, for the most part, succeeds. On Masked, the Columbus, Ohio quintet’s unique sound, simultaneously ambient and sinister, can mainly be attributed to guitarist Rich Witherspoon and keyboardist Robert Brothers. Carefully arranged and executed songs like “Sideshow,” “Silent Siren” and “Masked” best display their…
When California psyche-popsters Rain Parade came to an end, leader David Roback broke off to form Opal and then Mazzy Star; his bass-playing brother Steven (joined by bandmate John Thoman on guitar, future Continental Drifter drummer Carlo Nuccio and two others) reemerged as the guitar/keyboards-playing singer of Viva Saturn. The eponymous five-song 12-inch continues the…
Uncle Green was formed as a nondescript cover band by four New Jersey high school freshmen; after graduation, the friends relocated to Atlanta and began spewing out equally nondescript pop originals. Using airy harmonies and acoustic strums to spiff up their mild-mannered mainstream creations, Uncle Green breezed through three blandly inoffensive albums produced in turn…
On A Violent Impression, This Picture, an English quartet from Bath, seems like just another U2 knockoff: an overeager band mistaking hyper-emotive delivery for true soul and feeling. While guitarist Robert Forrester and bassist Austen Rowley churn out anthemic, ultra-enthusiastic instrumentation, drummer Duncan Forrester (Robert’s brother) backs everything with the same kind of pulse-quickening energy…
England’s Nösferätu is, bar none, the most theatrical goth outfit ever assembled; the band is so devoted to its pretensions that it drives to gigs in a hearse. Unlike the members of Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Christian Death and other genre giants, vocalist Louis DeWray, guitarist Damian Deville and bassist Vladimir Janicek are completely sincere;…
As frontman for Mary My Hope, James Hall displayed the same mysterious, androgynous qualities as Bowie’s Thin White Duke. The Atlanta group had a good deal more angst and melancholia swirled into the mix, though — its EP wasn’t named Suicide Kings for nothing. Mary My Hope’s edgy, unbalanced style would later be unknowingly repeated,…
