mrph | Soundtrack to a week in Coventry

Musical happenings of a vaguely gothy nature.

Stuff I've just acquired...

The new Faith & the Muse album (Vera Causa) is actually a two-CD collection of rarities, remixes and live versions. Unsurprisingly, it's pretty good. They actually get away with a Kate Bush cover (Running Up That Hill), and the live version of Christian Death's Romeo's Distress, done as a tribute to Rozz Williams, is as unsettling as I remember. I'm really not sure about some of the "club-friendly" remixes, though...

Zeromancer's new album, Eurotrash, which is a little more polished than their first one. It's still "NIN go EBM" in basic style, though, and it still suffers from a bit of 'filler' towards the end of the album- Doctor Online and Eurotrash are both catchy as hell, though, and I'm sure most of it works very well live.

An Absurd Minds single, Brainwash. Kinda fun, seriously growly vocals. Sounds a bit like 'Funker Vogt meets early Project Pitchfork', but not quite so 'cold' on CD (don't get me wrong, I really like FV live... but somehow the recordings lose the energy that makes it work).

Oysterband's Holy Bandits. Not goth at all, in fact. Folk music. But very, very good. This album is the original source of a few of their 'best of' tracks - Blood Wedding, When I'm Up I Can't Get Down and Road To Santiago. The rest of the album's a little less frenetic, but it's all excellent stuff.

Impressions of Winter's Iuturna (yes, I finally caught the stealth postman...:). Purchased mostly because they're playing Leipzig in 2002, and I hadn't heard of them. Obvious comparisons would be Dead Can Dance and Seventh Harmonic, I guess. Atmospheric, female vocals (mostly - there are a couple of male vocal tracks, which I'm currently not quite as fond of), definitely good mood-building stuff. I reckon I will be trying to see them at Leipzig - and the CD will probably get played a lot at the more civilised Amber sessions...

Neuroticfish's Wake Me Up. Mmmm. Not decided about this yet. It's very good, and it's very catchy... and it's perhaps a little too close to their previous single, Velocity. I hope they don't slip into a rut, as I've really enjoyed what they've done so far...

Audra's self-titled debut (blame Jodi for recommending them on upg) - not bad at all. About as cheerful and motivating as Radiohead, mind you, and for most of the same reasons. Don't Whisper My Name In The Dark is probably the stand-out track.

And a new band, as opposed to all these new album purchases - Belisha. Impressive, energetic tradgoff stuff. I've heard them compared to the March Violets, and personally I think they're not a million miles away from early Children on Stun. But, basically, they're good. They also have full length .mp3s on their site - IMHO the best one is the Hounded, but they're all pretty impressive.