Staff Pix 2/20: Goth

The winter is catching up to us here at milk crate… And this week we’ve gone dark…

“Blood Bitch” by Cocteau Twins

The first track ever released by Cocteau Twins, “Blood Bitch” immediately dives headfirst into the gloomy, atmospheric wails of what would soon be categorized as goth. Preceding the establishment of goth aesthetics and categories by a year, the song was ahead of its time, paving the uncharted, rocky road ahead. Yet, Cocteau Twins didn’t commit to these nightmarish sonics at all. By the next year – when there was finally a name put to this hollow and feverish music – they had pivoted almost completely. While they maintained a similar, yet arguably dampened, sense of melancholy, their sound had transformed into what it is widely recognized as now with shimmering, ethereal qualities. This is what makes “Blood Bitch” and the entirety of Garlands so impressive. It’s dark, bloody, and spiritually mysterious. “Don’t damage my altar/ Don’t damn this cold flame/ Neither one or the other/ Has much form or shape.” It’s proof that Cocteau Twins can do it all, from love songs drowning in their own sugary processed guitars to sombre strains of a cold descent into death. — Sophie Parrish

“She’s Lost Control” by Joy Division

Ian Curtis turned any song into a dark lullaby with his deep, piercing vocals and “She’s Lost Control” off of their debut album Unknown Pleasures (1979) is no exception. It’s melancholic and hollow, a contention between autonomy and limbs that’s haunting for every second. “She’s Lost Control” centers on Peter Hook’s high-register bassline and Stephen Morris’s jagged drumming, and the rest is all Ian Curtis. His baritone voice turns the melody’s landscape into a masterpiece of despair as he recounts his encounter with a woman having an epileptic seizure and losing control of her body. The song is robotic as it repeats, “She’s lost control,” again… and again… as though it somehow expects a different result but finds nothing in the desolate dissonance. — Heather Thorn

“Blasphemous Rumours” by Depeche Mode

A tragic, 6 minute new-wave story that criticizes the idea of divine justice? Sign me up. When I saw this prompt, my mind immediately went to Depeche Mode—maybe not officially goth, but definitely honorary. No Depeche Mode song represents darkness quite as well as “Blasphemous Rumours”. Originally released as a double A-side single with “Somebody” due to worries about potential religious controversy, the track chronicles the tragic life of a teenage girl, starting with a failed suicide attempt, then following two years later as she finds meaning for living through religion only to die in a car accident. The irony and injustice of the scenario is mocked and challenged in the repeated chorus, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours / But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour / And when I die, I expect to find him laughing.” — Julia Schramm

“Blind” by Swans 

Unless you’re talking to music elitists, it isn’t a far stretch to call Michael Gira a goth rock icon. His art is dark, brooding, nihilistic but also filled with an etherealness that brings light into the macabre. In 1991 he wrote ‘Blind,’ for Swans’ White Light from the Mouth of Infinity but released it under his own name in 1995 for his album ‘Drainland.’ The 4 minute track acts as a lullaby with Gira’s folk twanged crooning shushing you to sleep. My personal favorite aspect of ‘Blind’ is how it both fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. The track is truly a moment stuck in time that only comes whenever your ears, and luck, wants you to experience it. — Mario Sierra

“Feelings Between the Lines” by A Heartwell Ending

A Heartwell Ending is a small post-hardcore band from Long Beach, CA with only one album released from 2006, Trust Us We Lie. They note themselves in their Spotify bio as “Yet another MySpace band appealing to the teenage fans of Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday.” Their most popular track is “If Looks Could Kill,” but “Feelings Between the Lines” deserves just as much recognition and love. This album is the perfect embodiment of classic early 2000s emo. As the second to last song off the album, it stands out as slower paced amongst the others but has a memorable chorus and bridge. Although their discography is short and sweet, each song is worth listening to. They released about 10 demos on MySpace that still remain unreleased on streaming platforms before getting signed. After the release of their first and only album causing changes in their members, they rebranded themselves as Call the Cops and are considered a completely different band under a completely different genre of power-pop. — Katie Lew

“Грустная Сука” by IC3PEAK

Not goth so much as gothic, “Грустная Сука” by IC3PEAK is a post-witch house track full of the anti-authoritarian angst that would later cause the duo to be detained by the Russian government. Anastasia Kreslina and Nikolay Kostylev are the masterminds of the electronic duo, known for their menacing sound and unabashed criticism of the Russian government’s anti-queer, anti-dissent policies. This track, which translates to “sad bitch,” is filled with feminist anxieties and proud rejections of tradition—“Cross yourself every time you see me i disrupt your beliefs/ i’m ruining you day with my dead pale face/ i don’t care about you being triggered.” Kreslina switches between chanting her lyrics like hexes and pleas, moving from a hushed murmur to a reverberating shout with the seismic thump of the bass. In 2019, the music video for “Смерти Больше Нет” sparked an antagonism with Russian public figures who criticized its insinuation of suicide and its blatant slander against certain authority structures. The police threatened the duo and intimidated venues across Russia to drop their shows, culminating in the temporary detainment of the artists, until they were released following pressure from public and Western media. “Грустная Сука” marks in early point in the duo’s career, showing just how powerful their subversive lifestyle and political sentiments could be—and that the spirit of goth is still alive in the snowbanks of Moscow. — Christian Jones

“Lucretia My Reflection” by Sisters of Mercy

As the third track of eight on the Sisters of Mercy’s iconic 1987 album Floodland, “Lucretia My Reflection,” is a defining song of the goth rock genre. It was originally written by Andrew Eldritch to welcome the band’s new bassist, Patricia Morrison, who was well known for her gothic style at the time. This change in the band’s lineup inspired Eldritch to lean more into the sonic aspects of the goth movement, and so the song features a prominent bassline, mechanical drum beats, and deep vocals. These elements come together to create a killer blend of the post-punk, darkwave, and goth rock genres. Eldritch has also been quoted as saying Morrison reminded him of Italian noblewoman Lucrezia Borgia, so the lyrics are focused on heavy concepts such as falling empires, war, and destruction. — Emeline Chopin

“Spiritual Cramp” by Tears for the Dying

Covering a song by Christian Death is a bold move for a goth band, but Tears For the Dying are infinitely cooler than Christian Death were even before they sold out. For one, they have an awesome elder goth as a frontwoman. Tears for the Dying seem to have made it their mission to continue what Rozz Williams started with the original lineup of Christian Death: discordant death-rock with bold, in-your-face anti-establishment messaging. Their cover of Spiritual Cramp isn’t reinventing the wheel by any means—it doesn’t stray too far from the original, but in fairness the original is so good that it’s hard to see where they could improve on it. But their southern-gothic-tinged cover, informed by the sounds of their Georgia hometown, gives Rozz Williams’ vision a new lease of life, reviving a kind of goth rock that was largely overshadowed by the more radio-friendly British post-punk that defined the genre’s heyday. — Mimi Newman

“Lullaby” by The Cure

Lullaby sits as the 6th track on my absolute favorite Cure album, Disintegration, and stands as what I would describe as a quintessential goth track. Between its absolutely beautiful instrumentals, and it’s chilling lyrical content, it’s always been one of my favorite goth songs, if not one of my favorite songs in general. After learning this song on bass a few years ago, it has always stood out to me as such a masterfully written part as it brings a fun, lighthearted and creative energy to this song that was already strange and pretty. The droning quality of the bass is what always makes me come back to this song, over and over. As someone with chronic sleep paralysis I should probably not be rewatching this song’s terrifying but iconic music video (where Robert Smith faces a plethora of nightmare fuel as he lays in bed before sinking into a black abyss) right before going to sleep. When I think back to my childhood it stands out alongside The Foo Fighters’ Everlong video as one of the many very strange but amazing rock videos my dad showed me as a kid that brought such a sense of wonder to me when I was first discovering what kind of music I loved. — Hanlon Lowther

“We’ve Been Had” by The Walkmen

The Walkmen’s 2002 album “Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone” is a record that is as in touch with its melancholic indie rock sensibilities as it is with creating a massively visceral, gritty and droning soundscape, akin to the 1977 Eraserhead soundtrack. The album is primarily made up of songs with atmospheric, distorted guitar melodies that sound like they’re echoing off the huge concrete walls of an industrial power plant, taking listeners on a trip through the Walkmen’s personally constructed barren emotional wasteland as if we’re listening to an old, squeaky and rusty machine in a factory and trying to imagine it as music. “We’ve Been Had” provides a sort of auditory respite to the rough, lo-fi guitar soundscape of the rest of the album, the repeating, single-measure piano melody that sounds nearly out of tune guiding listeners into a pleasant, dreamlike trance before the drums kick in and remind us that the emotional journey isn’t over yet. While most of the album’s other songs incorporate lyrics lamenting on existential pain and introspection, “We’ve Been Had” invites listeners to step back and take a broader look at the decrepit emotional landscape they’ve found themselves in – “maybe you’ll get there someday,” “I see myself change, as the days change over.” The song is a larger meditation on how pain impacts life and can leave you stuck in cycles of depression and hopelessness, but it expands its meaning beyond pure nihilism by suggesting that the only way out is through, that accepting the pain will teach you how to better cope with it moving forward – “sometimes I’m just happy I’m older,” “somehow it got easy to laugh out loud.” “We’ve Been Had,” despite its depressing piano melody and unsettling lyrics, is ultimately the key moment of optimism in “Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone,” evolving the record from an exercise in introspective, atmospheric pessimism to a more nuanced meditation on existence and enduring struggle. — Diego Gonzalez