So, I finally caught up with Beastmilk. Let me start with this- it's some of the finest blackened Goth music I have heard. Take Leeds-based psychedelic dark music, a la Sisters of Mercy and RLYL, then, add a touch of Ladbroke grove ( Killing Joke, Hawkwind, Michael Moorcock), now coat the whole thing in a dust of Finnish gothic Love Metal ( you know, HIM?) and you have the general sound. Now add in an incongruous visual style the owes something to Dischord style opaqueness ( Nation of Ulysses) but has something of a Ken Russell disturbing occult twist. Sound interesting? Yeah, it is to me. Of course, Kurt Ballou produced it.
What that means in musical terms is non-cliche reverb drenched anthemic post punk with guitars that throb, and feedback, and sweep in an epic fashion over near conveyor belt dance beats. It's really good, it's recognizable as goth, but beyond that, it's hard to pin down which intrigues me more. People have mentioned Killing Joke, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Morrisey, but I hear just as much of the stuff I mentioned before. The spirit of Joy Division also looms, here and there. Lyrically, it's like Black metal, but made more specific, and thus more real- there's a lot of despair and menace, but, unlike Black Metal, the focus is more on a particularly occult view of real life. So, if you think the dark, gothy, psychedelic post punk of early to mid 1980's industrial England is a sound that could use some more life, I've got your undead fix, right here. Seriously, excellent stuff!
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