Gothic Metal Reviews
The thick, distorted guitar tones of heavy metal combined with the dark, romantic overtones of gothic rock – with the occasional poppy bombast of stadium rock – what’s not to like? There are plenty of gothic rock reviews on Kevy Metal, but the Album of the Week reviews about the releases of gothic metal bands outnumber them, because they tend to stick around for longer and release more than two or three worthwhile albums. All gothic metal reviews published on Kevy Metal can be found right here.
Not having properly tagged my reviews until a couple of years in, I may have written some gothic metal reviews that don’t show up here. Using the search bar at the bottom of the page is highly recommended if you are looking for something specific.
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Album of the Week 51-2019: The Vision Bleak – The Unknown
Gothic rock’s mournful melodies and doom metal’s crushing heaviness appear to be made for each other, both having an irresistibly ominous theatricality to them. More often than not, however, gothic metal bands go for the goth aesthetic rather than the stylistic properties of the genre. For every ‘Irreligious’, there is…
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Album of the Week 50-2019: Nefilim – Zoon
Back in the mid-nineties, the lone Nefilim album ‘Zoon’ must have been quite a shock for anyone who expected a continuation of the cinematic gothic rock sound that Fields Of The Nephilim was known for. There are similarities with the Fields’ sound, but those are not immediately apparent. Upon first…
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Album of the Week 27-2019: Swallow The Sun – When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light
Occasionally, there are rare instances in which the cliché that great misery inspires great art proves to be true. Swallow The Sun’s seventh album ‘When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light’ is one of those instances. Rhythm guitarist and main songwriter Juha Raivio lost his wife, South African singer…
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Album of the Week 52-2018: Cradle Of Filth – Hammer Of The Witches
Cradle Of Filth’s immense popularity is at least as much a result of their image and provocative shirt designs as it is of their music. That does not mean that they never made any good music, but at times, it seemed like the market desired the band to put out…
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Album of the Week 42-2018: Warrel Dane – Shadow Work
‘Shadow Work’ is a bittersweet affair. While it is good to have a new album with Warrel Dane’s vocals, he died during the recordings of the album in São Paulo, making this the last time we are treated to new material by Dane, who I consider one of the best…
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Album of the Week 31-2018: Moonspell – Irreligious
Depending on your outlook on music, ‘Irreligious’ is either the album where Moonspell finally got its shit together or the first step into the wrong direction. As a whole, ‘Irreligious’ sounds infinitely more professional than its legendary predecessor ‘Wolfheart’, but it also shifts the focus somewhat away from metal towards…
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Album of the Week 51-2017: Septicflesh – Codex Omega
While the orchestral death metal of Septicflesh should have a decent amount of appeal to me, their albums always felt just short of interesting to me. Admittedly, 2011’s ‘The Great Mass’ came close, but this year’s ‘Codex Omega’ was the first Septicflesh album I pretty much enjoy start to finish.…
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Album of the Week 33-2017: Moonspell – Alpha Noir / Omega White
Bonus cd’s with complete albums are something of a strange phenomenon, but they have been appearing more frequently. It is especially strange when the bonus album is significantly better than the main portion, as is the case with this double album of Portuguese gothic metal stalwarts Moonspell. It could be…
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Album of the Week 17-2017: The Gazette – Dogma
The Gazette is one of the most popular Japanese rock bands even outside of their native country. Save for a couple of songs, they never appealed to me much until they released their most recent studio album ‘Dogma’. For this dark monster of an album, the goth factor in the…