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I grew up listening to a lot of goth bands. And while a few, such as The Sisters and The Mission, seemed to have the necessary gravitas and grandeur to carry off the right effect, one of cool, edgy, aloofness or air of sweeping Regency romance, many who I shall not name, seemed to fall short and come off as some sort of sonic pantomime villains.
What I love about das Ghoul is that they make their music with their tongues firmly on their cheeks; we know that, and they know that we know that; everyone is in on it. It is what makes everything work, and work brilliantly. No one pretends that this is their real life; no one actually goes home and sleeps in a coffin or trains bats; they know they are playing a part. It is what made The Damned’s Phantasmagoria work so well (although one of their number did sleep in a coffin if rumour is to be believed): it is what makes das Ghoul’s latest one, the aptly named More Spectral Manoeuvres in the Dark, work equally brilliantly.
With such understandings out of the way, the band can fully commit to being purveyors of Gothic-tinged, horror-stained, punk’n‘roll terror pop. It is music delivered with a sly, knowing wink, and we smile back.
After some initial, Kurt Weill-esque, Tuppenny Opera fairground music subverted by raw, staccato riffs, we are presented with five songs whose brevity makes your average pop song feel like a concept album from seventies-era Yes.
We are greeted with spanking guitar runs softened by swirling Bach-like, vital organ music whilst being asked the perennial question of “Why Does Grandma Glow in the Dark?” and ornate keyboard work over which frontman Craig Holtom tries to convince us that he has “Never Seen That Axe Before”.
“Pandora’s Vinyl Curse” tackles how stupid an idea it is to think that a band might place subliminal messages on the records. As Judas Priest’s Rob Halford once pointed out, if a band was going to send any coded message to the listener, surely it would be to convince people to buy more of their albums, not kill each other, thus reducing the potential fan base. “Oh My! What a Grisly Find” is both confessional and terrifying, with stark lyrics put to intense guitar salvos and gentle, classical keyboards, and “Morbid Curiosities” rounds things off, a song that sounds as if The Doors were jamming with The Stranglers with Alice Cooper calling the lyrical shots.
This is a short, sharp, and shockingly great collection of songs. The lyrics wander between the fun and the truly frightening, and the music between the artful and the apocalyptic. It is music of the extremes—extremely menacing, extremely unique, extremely brilliant.
