Like it or not, or believe it or not, Gothic rock is classic rock now. If you link the genre back to its origins, you're looking back to the late '70s when gloom merchants such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, and Siouxsie & the Banshees were bellowing a dark, dissonant noise not too far from the Awakening (http://www.awakening.co.za) are doing in 2007.
But just as Goth injected a breath of cool air into the otherwise bland rock scene in the late '70s so are the Awakening providing a bracing and definitely welcome alternative to these emo-loving times.
You won't find any adolescent whining or screeching guitar riffs on the sweetly titled "Razor Burn." Instead, you will be ushered into another world, one of dimly-lit corridors and pulsating lights. More than contemporaries such as Marilyn Manson, the Awakening sound truly rooted in their British spiritual ancestry, artists like the Sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, and David Bowie.
|
Vocalist Ashton Nyte has an appropriately ominous voice, as deep as Bowie's and as icy as David Gahan's. On songs like "Arrow" and the title track, Nyte's eerie vocals truly produce an atmosphere of dread without crossing over into camp. If you have any familiarity to mid-to-late '80s Goth, the music is exactly what you're expecting: Chilly guitars with danceable, throbbing synthesizers.
Of course, the Sisters of Mercy weren't this loud but the Awakening are from another generation, the Nirvana revolution turned up the amps 16 years ago and there they shall remain for now. Nevertheless, the Awakening are just melodic and catchy as their aging idols.
|
