Gothic Club Classics

Volume 1 (Oblivion/SPV)
by Scott Hefflon

Nice… I come from a metal background, live with Goths, and’ve always been kind of attracted to “Goth metal,” even though I get the feeling most Goths wish someone’d change the name. Probably like most metalheads want nothing to do with the jock mentality of nü metal and wish they’d change it. Anyway…

Here’s what looks like a pretty damn comprehensive comp (cut it slack, ya can’t accomplish everything with one comp, even a double like this, but you can make serious headway, as I think they have here). It picks from the ’80s and ’90s, and hits a lot of highlights along the way. Goth staples like Bauhaus and Fields of the Nephilim are matched with “dance Goth” and “Goth rock” and “Goth metal” bands both familiar and unfamiliar. And there are “stretches” of the term Goth that make all the difference in the world; Nick Cave, Diamanda Galas, and Einstüzende Neubauten. Good for them! Too often these comps are so straightforward that it’s hard to tell who’s who cuz it all sounds so similar (to the untrained ear). And while I don’t mean to take an undue potshot, it’s nice to see someone other than Cleopatra releasing Goth comps. The world’s a big place and diversity (not to mention informative liner notes with as few typos and flat-out inaccuracies as possible) is what it’s all about.

Bands brooding and sighing: The Mission, The Merry Thoughts, Cassandra Complex, X-mal Deutschland, Clan of Xymox, Killing Joke, Girls Under Glass, Das Ich, Eyes of the Nightmare Jungle, Dreadful Shadows, And Also the Trees, Alien Sex Fiend, Type O Negative, Moonspell, The Eternal Afflict, Love Like Blood, Inkubus Sukkubus, Lacrimosa, Pink Turns Blue, Children of No Return, Theatre of Tragedy, Psychic TV, Angina Pectoris.
(www.spv.de)