Never mind where all the bootboys went, as Slaughter and the Dogs asked back in 1977, what about the goths? The mid 90s saw the scene that had been populated by the likes of The Sisters of Mercy, All About Eve and The Mission fragment into myriad sub-sub cultures, and saw the mergence of Cybergoth and Darkwave, and from thereon in goth only went further underground.
The last two or three years have seen a resurgence of the bleak post-punk sound pioneered by the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Skeletal Family and X-Mal Deutschland with the emergence of Savages and their ilk, but the electro side of the goth scene’s been bubbling under too, especially on the mainland.
Persistent, repetitive industrial beats provide the backdrop to a monotone, Michael Gira like vocal on the title track and opener on Covenant’s latest offering, a stark meeting of electronica and industrial that’s both claustrophobic and apocalyptic. The medieval harpsichord sound that runs through ‘Thy Kingdon Come’ collides with a juddery sequenced bass to forge a quasi-gothic electrogoth floor-filler. The EBM / Cybergoth groove of ‘Last Dance’ is stark and theatrical, and compliments the trance-dance of ‘Prime Movers’. The fractured narrative and jittery, broken backdrop of ‘I Walk Slow’ is sark and unsettling, although ‘For Our Time’ is as dull as it is poppy, and really kills the vibe. The electro-pop ‘Ignorance & Bliss’ is sadly lacklustre – think A-Ha with eyeliner and black hair dye – but the final track, ‘Auto-Circulation’ is more than adequate compensation: equal parts Young Gods and Factory Floor, it hits a locked-in groove and drives it right home to the finish.
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