rusty_halo | (no subject)

Today is so strange.

I got all Gothed out for Halloween. I couldn't help it; it's my favorite holiday. Everyone at work looked at me weird. It's sort of a toned-down Goth, though, but still. Stands out. No one else even dressed up, and my boss forgot it was Halloween. How can you forget Halloween!?

Workmen are drilling outside, very, very loudly, and almost in our office. They're redoing the front of the building, right outside our windows (and one wall of our office is all windows). I mean they're so close that you can see the workman's butt crack when he leans over to drill--he's about six feet away from me. It's so loud that it's impossible to talk, so my boss (who's usually really picky about this stuff) told us that we could get headphones and listen to music to drown it out. So I'm listening to the Cruxshadows' album Wishfire at top volume to drown out the drilling.

This is an unbelievably brilliant record. Everyone should go buy it now (try amazon or isotank). This band is just so smart and thoughtful and creative and interesting. I never hear this kind of thing on the radio anymore; music that's really innovative and lyrics that actually make you both think and feel. They're so interesting; they incorporate lots of mythology (esp Greek and Egyptian), various literary sources (Poe, Lewis Caroll, etc), all these ideas about maintaining your individuality and how to survive in a conformist society, as well as the usual love and relationship type songs. There's real heart and real passion and real hope in this music. I mean real, not the pre-packaged bullshit that you get from MTV and the radio.

The song I'm currently obsessed with is Resist/R, which you should be able to get from Kazaa or other file-sharing places. If you want to try some of their other music, everything on Wishfire is great. Tears is very powerful. Go Away and Return (Coming Home) are slower, if you're into quieter music. And not from this record, but a wonderful song and probably their biggest hit, is Marilyn, My Bitterness, which is totally heart-wrenching. Some other good ones are Eurydice, Leave Me Alone, Cruelty, Heaven's Gaze, Love/Tragedy ... well, lots. Also, since these guys are not on a major record label, if you like what you hear, please do buy the actual records as well.

Their official site, where you can find out more about the band, is Cruxshadows.com, btw. (No, I wasn't paid to write this. I really just haven't felt this strongly about music in a very long time.) Also, they're playing Philadelphia tonight (alas, I'm not going) and NYC tomorrow (I'm definitely going). And they're playing the east coast all month, so check out their list of tourdates here. I first saw them in ... 2000? 2001? with Uranium 235 in this tiny club in Connecticut, and since then I've seen them several more times (most recently at DragonCon). They put on an amazing live show, especially because they're so interactive with the audience (their singer, Rogue, comes into the crowd and sings as he walks around, and climbs on balconys and stuff).

I've also realized how much I miss listening to albums. There's just something more powerful and real about listening to the whole record, in the order intended, that you miss when you download MP3s and listen to them out of order. Most albums have a unifying concept, a theme, a progression; the songs and ideas relate to each other in different ways. You get more out of the experience by listening to the full record; if you're just listening to MP3s, you're missing something. I'm so dependent on MP3s now that I don't even own a CD player, but I'm thinking I really ought to buy one.

Oh yeah, and happy Halloween, everyone. I still haven't been able to catch up with my friends' list; I feel so out-of-touch! But I did archive some Halloween stories today; check out the All About Spike homepage for the list. And don't miss the list of stories that

wiseacress is compiling.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

laura, i have to thank you for the cruxshadows rec. i grew up on 80s goth, new wave, belgian new beat, & the beginnings of darkwave. (i was a HUGE clan of xymox fan.) & recently, i've been into a lot of electrowave...& italo disco because of the vocal similarities. some of those terms may be lost on you, but cruxshadows remind me a lot of what was coming out on antler records in the mid to late 80s. i've just listened to the samples of tracks from ethernaut & i'm very, very pleasantly surprised. i need it louder & in higher quality. it's like all the loveliness of the strong-male-vocal progressive house from a couple of years ago...stripped of the club posturing & filtered through something really, really familiar. what else can you recommend? (roland P-909 kickdrum & synthy sounds are especially prized.)

Oooh, neat. I'm glad you like.

Bella Morte is also really good. They're similar to the Cruxshadows. I've never heard The Last Dance, but they're playing with the Cruxshadows tomorrow, so I'm guessing they're similar too.

And there's always Uranium 235. If you go to Uranium235.com you can download some of their full songs - try Drown, Here it Comes, Stimulation, and their excellent cover of You Spin Me Round (mixed with Tainted Love). And if you can find it somewhere, their song Bleed My Disease is perfect, and Creator is also great. (Their other songs are good, too, but heavier and more metal influenced.) You can get their album, Cultural Minority, at amazon .

Hey, just out of curiousity, have you ever heard of the band Written in Ashes, based out of Portland?

Nope, haven't heard of them. I tend to be very obsessively narrow in my interests; Spike has had my attention for the past two years. Before that I was into an underground industrial/electronic band, so I got into that type of music, which is why I know the Cruxshadows. But I'm pretty clueless about music now.

Yeah, they're not big or anything. But they've opened for the Cruxshadows so I was curious. (It's my cousin's band. They may suck, I haven't actually heard them play.)