Them Are Us Too Make Amends

The Bay Area’s euphoric dream pop duo Them Are Us Too began in 2012 with schoolmates Kennedy Ashlyn and Cash Askew playing well balanced eighties inspired synth-pop shoegaze. In 2015, they released their debut album, Remain, a gloomy tour de force to incredible acclaim. They built up a dedicated cult following, and that success hyped the anticipation for the follow-up to their big debut. Tragically in 2016, a warehouse fire claimed Askew’s life at 22 years old, putting the band’s career in uncertainty. However, through the ashes of tragedy arose a new album, Amends, the band’s second and final as TAUT (as fans call them) and it is a beautifully haunting piece of work filled with ethereal elegance and atmospherics.

Amends, as Ashlyn describes, is “a collection of songs that would have been the second Them Are Us Too record, an amendment to our catalog cut short, a final gift to family, friends, and fans.” Amends is a celebration of the magic and art that Ashlyn and Askew have been making since the band’s formation. While it is bittersweet for TAUT to leave us prematurely, Amends says so much in such a brief amount of time. It drives home the nervous energy of acceptance and unrestrained expectations in the face of loss. It is what remains of incomplete demo recordings that Ashlyn stitched together with the help of producer Josh Eustis, her partner Anya Dross and Askew’s stepfather, Sunny Haire (he lengthens Askew’s previously recorded guitars) to full realization. Eustis also lost a creative partner (Charlie Cooper) far too early and that only adds to Amends‘s pathos. Throughout the album’s six songs, the fabric of grief is intimately explored and Ashlyn projects it powerfully. It is a moving experience from start to finish awash with hallucinatory ambience and dream-state hazes that stay with you long after you’ve put your earphones away. It is a timeless classic of grand heights in league with Disintegration-era The Cure and early Cocteau Twins. Where Remain was dark and dreary, Amends is a release of sadness. Its songs highlight the various processes of sorrow. It is therapeutic and highly deserving of a careful, open-hearted listen. It is a permanent goodbye to what once was. This final farewell wonderfully makes sense of the struggles of loss with lyrical sentiments perfectly encapsulating the shaking realization of death. It is an intriguing, triumphant, defiant, eternal and thought-provoking piece of art.

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The Grim Folk: As Grim as It Gets

San Antonio dark country/psychobilly band The Grim Folks have been taking the San Antonio music scene by storm, albeit in their own way. Not one to mix in with the rest, The Grim Folks deliver a fresh and exciting sound in a city obsessed with metal and Mexican regional music. It’s not to say they don’t fit the bill; simply, they aren’t the typical band you would expect to come across. That, however, is a damn good thing. At home with the punk and goth crowds, The Grim Folks play macabre songs inspired from “roots” Americana full of dark humor and superstitious folklore with an undisguised energy. They aren’t exclusive to particular crowds; they have a loose and inviting vibe anyone can enjoy. “When it comes to writing lyrics, my influence is inspired by horror movies I watched as a kid or stories of the supernatural, “said Nathan Quintanilla, the band’s vocalist and rhythm guitarist. “That enticing feeling I get when seeing or hearing these things is what I try to shape i

She Past Away and their Anxiety Disco

Turkish goths She Past Away are back with their third and long-awaited new album, Disko Anksiyete , a masterfully crafted blend of post-punk, dark wave and gothic rock (obviously). On Disko Anksiyete (Anxiety Disco in English), the duo comprised of guitarist/vocalist Volkan Caner and producer/keyboardist Doruk Ozturkan switch gears a bit and go into more pop structured/disco-y territory, but the band doesn’t completely abandon their typical sound. Easily their more accessible album, Disko is full of 80s cold wave/post-punk influence, alluding to the classic sounds of Joy Division and New Order. Caner displays unique musicianship and his singing is reminiscent of the Sisters of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch, while Ozturkan’s keyboard washes and production are crisp, polished and solid. photo: rockallphotography.com In comparison to their previous releases, debut Belirdi Gece and the sophomoric Narin Yalnızlık , both phenomenal albums, Disko is certainly the standout

Chelsea Wolfe Births Violence

If the American Gothic movement had a sound, Chelsea Wolfe perfectly captures it. Wolfe’s latest album (and sixth overall), Birth of Violence , brings her back to her gloomy folk roots. It’s a goth-tinged acoustic album, a departure from her harder, heavier and sludgy doom-metal heard in her previous releases, Abyss and Hiss Spun , two albums that followed the more accessible Pain is Beauty , whose title sounds like an art school kid’s expressionist project. Acoustic offerings are nothing new for Wolfe. Her catalogue features a few here and there, and Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs is as stated: a collection of acoustic songs from her earlier days. Acoustic music has a tendency to be skipped over, but Wolfe’s should not. No matter how they’re performed, they are desolate, raw and impassioned. If her studio recordings can move you to the deepest bowels of a dark place, they are a whole other entity live with even more depth.

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