goth rock Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Cure “Songs of a Lost World”

sfilzen — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 19:53:36 +0000

The Cure “Songs of a Lost World” 2024. Fiction Records on limited edition white vinyl. The Cure’s 14th studio LP after a 16 year break (though it was originally intended for release in 2019). Songs of a Lost World went to #1 in the UK and to #4 in the US (thought to #1 on the alternative chart) and was one of the top selling records of 2024 and received almost universal critical acclaim. It’s gorgeous, lushly gothic, atmospheric and amazing. They played a few of the tracks when we saw The Cure perform in Chicago in 2023, though I’ll admit to needing to look up the setlist as I clearly hadn’t heard any of the songs a year and a half ago. Those included the album (and concert) opener and first single “Alone,” “A Fragile Thing,” the epic “Endsong” and one of my top tracks from the album “And Nothing is Forever.”

The Cure, Chicago 2023

I also love the excruciating intensity of “Warsong,” the dark rock n’roll wardrum beat and licks of “Drone:Nodrone” (the only ass-shaker on the record) and the deep emotionality of “I Can Never Say Goodbye” which is about the death of Robert Smith’s brother: “It’s a very difficult song to sing. People say ‘cathartic’ too much, but it was. It allowed me to deal with it, and I think it’s helped me enormously.”

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The Cult “Dreamtime”

sfilzen — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 18:26:30 +0000

The Cult “Dreamtime” released just over 40 years ago, on August 31st, 1984. Beggars Banquet. The debut LP by then-post punk goth rockers (before they went hard rock/metal) with a sound described by lead singer Ian Astbury “like Big Country and U2, only better.” Big-ass 80’s drums, soaring and anthemic guitars and vocals: check! Dreamtime went to #21 in the UK. The first of the two singles released from the album, “Spiritwalker,” is one of my favorites on the LP: a alternative/goth ass-shaker that if I wan’t dancing to back in the mid-80’s at teen nights, I certainly could have been. “Spiritwalker” went to #77 on the UK singles chart and to #1 on the UK indie chart. Though it’s good, I’m not quite as crazy about the second and final single, “Go West (Crazy Spinning Circles)” which went to #90 in the UK. It’s a bit more on the pop end of gothy post-punk but it’s a bit repetitive and at times tedious. I do like “A Flower in the Desert” quite a bit (a bit of a Smith/Cure mashup). Like “Spiritwalker,” “A Flower in the Desert” was written back when The Cult was going by the name Southern Death Cult; its original title was “Flowers in the Forest.” Also of interest: the lead track “Horse Nation” very directly channels Astbury wanna-be Native American aesthetic – according to Wiki its lyrics “are taken almost verbatim from the non-fiction book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” (“Spiritwalker is also clearly Native-inspired, so too ‘Dreamtime‘ is inspired by mythology of the Aboriginal Australians and ‘Butterflies‘ is a reference to the Hopi ceremonial butterfly dance.” – wiki). The final track on Dreamtime, “Bad Medicine Waltz,” is an over-the-top gothic dirge and a dead-ringer for “Black Angel,” the closer on their subsequent release, Love from 1985, one of my all-time favorite 80’s releases.

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The Cult “Big Apple Glitter”

sfilzen — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:51:11 +0000

The Cult “Big Apple Glitter” 1985/2022. Dear Boss Records, limited edition pink vinyl (bootleg release). Happy Valentine’s Day! Big Apple Glitter is from The Cult’s 1985 Love tour, recorded live at The Ritz on December 6th, 1985. It’s not the greatest audio quality (the guitar is pretty distorted) but I went in knowing it’s a bootleg and I love Love so much I’m just thrilled to have a bunch of the tracks in a live format. Only one song on this live LP does not appear on their ’85 album: “Horse Nation” which is on their 1984 debut Dreamtime. All the rest are pure Love awesomeness: the title track “Love,” the psychedelic-gothpunk “Nirvana,” the anthemic, power ballady “Revolution” (released as the third single from Love) and a highly danceable, almost “club remix” version with giant 80’s-style drums of “Rain” (the second single released from Love which went to #17 in the UK) make up Side A. On Side B is one of my favorite Cult songs ever, “She Sells Sanctuary” (#15 UK, #36 US Dance Club chart) – it’s too bad the sound quality on this track sucks pretty bad – plus the shredding and aptly named “Phoenix,” the excellent post-punk’d jangled “Big Neon Glitter,” the darkly brooding “Brother Wolf, Sister Moon” and the aforementioned “Horse Nation.”

Here’s the concert in its entirety:

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Convert “Unrestrained”

sfilzen — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 18:14:13 +0000

Convert “Unrestrained” Remix EP, 2023. Triple Eye Industries. Released this past weekend, on limited edition cassette and CD only. Milwaukee industrial-goth, post-punk and currently my favorite local band. We made it out to the release party show at Promises on Friday night and it was pretty epic, though no one saw much because of the intensity of the smoke machine. This literally is the best picture we took (and I’ve applied filters so you can at least kind of see Dillon singing). Funniest part of the evening: the young guy with the dreads you can see in the photo below at one point tried to start a mosh pit. Some of the young women in the crowd freaked and scurried out of the way to near where we were standing by the wall. Joe lightly grabbed the guy by the shoulder and told him to “Settle down!” I laughed so hard because it was such an old-man moment: get off my lawn!

Convert at Promises, March 3rd 2023

Anyway, Unrestrained is a collection of six remixed tracks from their 2022 LP Saves and it’s amazing. I think I actually like the remixes even better than the originals. Super extra dark, with the industrial sound amped into EBM territory. Think early (good) Ministry, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb meets The Cure, Bauhaus and Siouxsie. I 100% would have been dancing to these tracks on industrial night in the 80’s. “Watch It Burn (Blood Remix)” and “Bleached Bones (Vic Dagger Remix)” are ass-shaking amazing. I also love the swirly dream-synth accent on “Nightbursts (TransAmvania Remix)” and “Death Mask (Cellmate Remix)” is terrifying — in a good way. I also must give a shoutout to the sludgy track “Cold Motive (Guerrilla Ghost Remix)” mostly because I know one of the Guerrilla Ghost guys. You can get your own copy here.

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Love and Rockets “Rock and Roll Babylon”

sfilzen — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 14:23:45 +0000

Love and Rockets “Rock and Roll Babylon” 1989. Big Time Records/Beggars Banquet. 12″ single promotional-only release. “Rock and Roll Babylon” appears on their 1989 self-titled album; it’s a really lovely industrial-goes-psychedelic goth song. The 12″ is a double A-side (like promos for radio stations tend to be, DJ’s being in a big hurry and all that) so also appearing on each side are two live tracks that happen to be some of my favorite Love and Rockets songs. There’s a live version of “No New Tale To Tell” (originally on Earth Sun Moon) recorded on January 27, 1988 (venue unknown) as well as “Ball of Confusion” (The Temptations, 1970) from their concert at The Palladium in Hollywood on December 20th, 1986. Their performance of “Ball of Confusion” is epic: Love and Rockets seamlessly blend a mid-song stomping bridge breakdown of “War”‘s (originally by Edwin Starr, 1970) chorus. As far as I can tell, the live version of “Ball of Confusion” that is on this 12″ does not exist on the internet so I guess use your imagination to mash it up with a pounding 80’s industrial “War.”

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The Cure “Quadpus”

sfilzen — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 22:40:09 +0000

The Cure “Quadpus” 1986. 4-song EP released after their ‘85 LP The Head on the Door. (The UK 10″ version on Fiction Records is delightfully – and helpfully- titled “Half an Octopuss”). Side A has the Head on the Door track “A Night Like This,” one of my favorites from that album: all gothily romantic, and the dark and trippy “New Day” which was recorded in ‘84 probably during The Top recording sessions as parts of “Sadacic“ (which appears on The Top ‘06 reissue as a bonus track) were re-used in “New Day.” Side B has the 12″ extended mix of “Close To Me,” a single from The Head on the Door that went to #24 in the UK. It’s not one of my top Cure songs and the extended version doesn’t really make it better, just longer with a lot of New Orleans-style brass. “A Man Inside My Mouth,” a pretty nutso song which was the b-side to the single version of “Close to Me” (it also appears on the 10″ and 12″ single versions), closes out the EP.

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Love and Rockets “Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven”

sfilzen — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 17:18:28 +0000

Love and Rockets “Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven” released 35 years ago today, October 11th, 1985 on Beggars Banquet. Dreamy, gothic and psychedelic post-punk, Seventh Dream was Love and Rockets first LP, the band reforming – after a short stint as Tones on Tail (Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins, no David J) – from the ashes of Bauhaus. It definitely has a lighter, less industrial feel than those bands and later Love and Rockets releases. Just one single came from the album, “If There’s a Heaven Above” (I don’t believe it charted), though they had released a stand-alone single before the record came out, their amazing cover of “Ball of Confusion” (in May of ‘85) originally by The Temptations in 1970. My top track is “Haunted When the Minutes Drag,” which continues to be one of my favorite Love and Rockets songs. I also really love “The Dog-End Day of a Day Gone By,” which has the elements of a psych-goth anthem (soaring vocals, 60′s-style organ, big echoey drums, etc.).

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Love and Rockets “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)”

sfilzen — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 16:17:14 +0000

Love and Rockets “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)” 1986. 12″ single. Beggars Banquet. The second single from Express (their most excellent second LP released on this date, September 15th, 1986) came out on September 8th ‘86; it’s a driving, hard-edged psychedelically goth-goes-industrial track that’s also a great dance tune (it did not chart). And because the internet is both wonderful and awful, I’ve learned that “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)” appeared on an episode of Miami Vice during a boat chase (the episode “God’s Work” from November 6, 1987 with the summary “A drug lord’s financially-savvy son suddenly returns home, and the underworld is clamoring to find out why.” Here’s the link if you want the spoiler. I am probably one of the few Gen-X’ers who never watched an episode of Miami Vice in its entirety but I have a feeling every episode can probably be summarized similarly). The B-side is the instrumental “Angels and Devils.” Also on the 12″ is an extended version of “Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)” which is about a minute or so longer.

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The Cure “The Head on the Door”

sfilzen — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 20:14:17 +0000

The Cure “The Head on the Door” released 35 years ago today, August 26th, 1985. I got this copy pretty soon after its release in the fall of ‘85 and played the sh*t out of it that year – it still remains one of my favorites. It marks an evolution in The Cure’s pivot toward more of a pop sound but still retains a lot of the post-punk goth darkness and exotica from their earlier album releases. The Head on the Door went to #7 in the UK and cracked respectably into the US market, going to #59. I love every moment of the record but my favorite songs include the highly danceable lead single “In Between Days” (#15 UK, #99 US), the exotic duo “Kyoto Song” and “The Blood,” the sweetly lilting “Six Different Ways,” the new wave dance floor tracks “Push” and “The Baby Screams,” the moodily beautiful “A Night Like This” (“Your trust the most gorgeously stupid thing I ever cut in the world”) and the bass heavy industrial-ish “Screw.” OK I pretty much just listed every track on the record. My least favorite track (I do like it, just not as much) is their second and final single, the feverishly claustrophobic hand-clappy “Close To Me” which went to #24 in the UK. Its remix went to #97 in ‘91.

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The Cure “Pictures of You”

sfilzen — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 16:13:12 +0000

The Cure “Pictures of You” 1990. Fiction Records, 12″ single. “Pictures of You” was The Cure’s final single from their 1989 album Disintegration. It’s painful and beautiful (apparently written by Robert Smith after a house fire; the single’s sleeve is a photo of his wife that he was able to salvage), this 12″ has the Extended Remix (by Bryan “Chuck” New), the regular-length version went to #27 in the UK and #71 in the US. The B-side includes live versions of “Last Dance” and “Fascination Street,” recorded at Wembley in July ‘89. I love both of those tracks from Disintegration, too: both lush, melancholy and gorgeous.

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