Sex Cross-s/t EP (2012)

The goofy name is a dead giveaway that we're dealing with a goth band here. Unsurprisingly, then, these Jerseyites dish out three tracks of blackclad gloom, leaning on coldwave guitar  stylings like I'll be leaning against a wall to keep me on my feet as I puke in a few hours.

This brief EP has all the requisite components of a guitar-based goth ensemble: distant, chanted vocals; monotone drumming; a bass that's somewhere in there, probably beneath a black trenchcoat; and a taut, shards-of-ice guitar track. "Summer of Fire" is my pick, for the, you guessed it, guitar: once again, as I claimed in my Cemetery review, goth owes a lot to surf guitar riffs.

In fact, if you dig Cemetery, get yr hands (er, ears? Itunes files?) on this now-Sex Cross will tide you over til the next release by those Chicago glumrockers, and I'm looking forward to what these guys' mortuary operation produces next.

HERE. 

Happy New Year/Nite Fields split 7" (2012)

Bridging my current fixation on dreampop (guilty pleasure of the last two months 'round here has been the new Beach House LP) and my ongoing obsession with all things -wave, this split EP throws up two tracks of effects-laden dreaminess suitable for those who enjoy thinking about doom 'n' gloom gothiness when getting fucked up.

Happy New Year's "High Sea" opens with pensive, (melo)dramatic piano and distant, echoing gongs. The singer intones from a distance, her words lost on misty trails of cold ruin as the musicians hammer home a Gothic, lost-on-the-moors ambiance fitting for smoking a shit ton of weed and watching "Game of Thrones" with the sound off, to better absord Happy New Year. Y'know, wizards and death and swords 'n' shit.

Nite Fields' "Come Down" picks up where Happy New Year left off; the song picks up after the swords 'n' dragons battle to dwell on a ruined, haunted landscape. The drums are propulsive but heavily treated with echo, the singer sounds like he's singing from a ship passing in the night, his words vanishing into the ether.

Last night I tripped over some goth girl's 12-inch black docs while walking out of a bar-it seems like goth is back in a big way in Portland, so all you ultra-cool West Coast kids, be sure to pick up this piece of Australian glumrock, pronto.

You can do so here, courtesy of Lost Race Records. Listen to it before ya buy it, over at soundcloud.