Bands like Dream Bodies and songs like “Don’t Look Back” remind us that the gothic/darkwave sound always had more to do with the alternative dance set and the scene that would eventually go overground as the New Romantics than the rockers who eventually adopted the sound. Sure, you can draw lines connecting the sound to that of the likes of guitar-driven bands such as Joy Division or The Sisters of Mercy, but there is perhaps more that connects it to darkwave-electro bands like Clan of Xymox.
Just one listen to Steven Fleet’s latest dark and delicious single and that becomes obvious. The infectious grooves, the coiled guitars, the sonic haze that seems to wash through it, the driving bass lines, the digital beats, the neon-drenched vibe – it’s all there.
The song was written by Dexy Valentine of Magic Wands when she and Steven had a project called Starlit Motel. It has proved such a favourite with audiences that it has been reimagined and revamped for Dream Bodies. Here, it is more synth-driven, and the words have changed, but the sonic and lyrical sentiment remains.
Songs like this never go out of fashion, they come from a scene that was never really in fashion it is a song forged of a sound that has always lingered on the edges of pop conciousness, where commercial acceptability is subverted by the nigh time underground, a constant presence, yet just beyond the reach of the mainstream.
And that’s what keeps it alive, niche enough that the pop-pickers and rockers haven’t watered it down and turned it into a fad, accessible enough that anyone from the mainstream can stumble upon it, and when they do, they usually become a convert overnight.
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