Then Comes SilenceBlood

It seems that goth rock exists like a fly trapped in amber. If you want to experience pure 80s goth rock, you need to rock up to some shitty underground club called “Cabaret Nocturne” or “Fascination Street.”  You then proceed with bobbing about to Fields of the Nephilim until sunrise peeks through black curtains. An entrepreneurial spirit never hurt anyone, so why not market a throwback goth band and see what happens? Enter Then Comes Silence.

Then Comes Silence isn’t a total hedge for Nuclear Blast, having three successful albums under their studded belts. Blood is total goth worship in an age where all the altars to Robert Smith are torn down. So what does it sound like? Well, The Dead Cry For No One’s four-on-the-floor rhythm is 1000 percent cribbed from Killing Joke’s hey-day. Isn’t this a rehash? Not quite. As the disc spins on, it’s kind of the whole point.

Warm Like Blood even opens with the same syncopated jangle as Killing Joke’s Love Like Blood; right there you realise they’ve taken it upon themselves to further the goth cause.

Singer Alex Svenson pitches himself between a weary Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) and a droning Andrew Eldritch (The Sisters of Mercy) Their big-bang choruses and churning guitar lines are pure Sisters homage, especially in creepy reverb-drenched In Leash, which feels like we finally understand what that “vision thing” actually was. (I’m lying, I have no idea.) Ghostly oohing rushes through Choose Your Poison, like a ghost caressing an alabaster thigh in dressed black lace and rose petals. It sounds dramatic, because drama is at the core of what Then Comes Silence is about. Without complete surrender to dark passion, the band’s schtick wouldn’t work. Warm Like Blood even opens with the same syncopated jangle as Killing Joke’s Love Like Blood; right there you realise they’ve taken it upon themselves to further the goth cause. Which should be hunky-dory; KJ’s bassist Youth is fifty-six now. Think about it.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Warm Like Blood, The Dead Cry For No One, In Leash
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Killing Joke, The Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus