Gothic Rock Reviews
Despite having devoted much of my musical love to hard rock and heavy metal since my early teenage years, the eerie clean guitars, darkly romantic atmosphere and often deep vocals of gothic rock greatly appeal to me. Several gothic rock releases are reviewed on this site, especially since the genre seems to have been going through a bit of a revival in recent years. You can find all of the Album of the Week reviews about gothic rock releases right here. Minor overlaps with my gothic metal reviews inevitably exist.
While I didn’t write a lot of gothic rock reviews in the first few years of Kevy Metal, when I didn’t properly tag my reviews yet, they may exist. Therefore, if you are looking for something specific, using the search bar at the bottom of the page to search by artist or release title is recommended.
-
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…
-
Album of the Week 19-2018: The Mortal – I Am Mortal
Atsushi Sakurai was born to sing gothic rock. His deep, emotional baritone belongs in the genre. But somehow, despite their gothic masterpiece ‘Jusankai Wa Gekko’, his main band Buck-Tick does not want to make the full leap into the genre. As a result, he needs to set up projects like…
-
Album of the Week 13-2018: The Sisters Of Mercy – Vision Thing
The change between The Sisters Of Mercy’s second album ‘Floodland’ and its follow-up ‘Vision Thing’ is apparent from the moment the album kicks off. The reverb-heavy gothic atmosphere of the former had been exchanged for a drier production and a riff-oriented approach. With four people credited with playing guitar on…
-
Album of the Week 11-2018: Buck-Tick – No. 0
With Buck-Tick on a surprisingly high second career peak from their 2005 masterpiece ‘Jusankai Wa Gekkou’ onward, a new album is always something to look forward to. Especially considering how good 2016’s ‘Atom Miraiha No. 9’ was. And while ‘No. 0’ isn’t quite as good as its predecessor was, there…
-
Album of the Week 09-2018: Buck-Tick – Atom Miraiha No. 9
With the release of the new Buck-Tick album ‘No. 0’ less than two weeks away, let us focus on why there is a reason to get excited about that. Unlike most other visual kei pioneers, Buck-Tick is still relevant today. In fact, they have been experiencing a second youth of…
-
Album of the Week 37-2017: Fields Of The Nephilim – Elizium
Some bands go out while they’re on top. Goth masters Fields Of The Nephilim was one of those bands. ‘Elizium’ is a masterpiece that was far ahead of what any other band in the genre – even The Sisters Of Mercy – were doing at the time. The album has…
-
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…
-
Album of the Week 28-2017: Buck-Tick – Juusankai Wa Gekkou
Buck-Tick is one of the most influential bands from the Japanese visual kei scene. Singer Atsushi Sakurai has one of the most distinctive, appealing voices of that scene and yet, their classic material never appealed to me much. Their earliest work was a bit too upbeat for my taste, while…
-
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…
Kevy Metal 