An Atmospheric and Edgy Maxi-Single Release from ShadowMouth & The Elder Goths
- BuzzSlayers
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
A maxi-single release from ShadowMouth & The Elder Goths comes through with a vast soundscape that pulls you in, with a cinematic backbone, dark overtones, and hints of post-punk and Industrial lurking just beneath the surface.
This is a pretty big release, and both of these tracks absolutely hit with that sort of profound and occult-feeling soundscape.
There are plenty of elements to this release that lean into electronic music, with synthesizers dripping in delay, overlapping themselves, creating these robust melodies that certainly boast a little bit of edginess but also have some color and expansive tonality to the way that they are performed.
They also come through with loads of these flowing vocals that are almost angelic, in a sense.
They are almost always harmonizing, and dripping in reverb effect, so they feel distant, building on the layers and depth of the sounds that you hear.
This is a brilliant record to listen to with headphones on; this way you can really soak in all the different tones and textures that are coming at you.
The whole thing is, none of this is actually aggressive. It's all sort of naturally flowing, and it invites you to float alongside at all.
There's this almost dreamy element to it as well. It blends amazingly with that darker gothic sense of approach and aesthetic, and I feel like that combination, in general, is quite brilliant.
They also have an amazing way of building songs. Their sense of arrangement is awesome, and they're able to have a song grow bigger and bigger until it hits that climactic point.
By the end of the first track, "The Promise of Alchemy", the song is lush, full-bodied, and everything feels sort of intense, while still having this sense of calm and almost a dream-like texture.
These are songs you can absolutely escape into. They can pull you away from wherever you are and whatever you're doing and put you in a completely different headspace for a little chunk of time, which I found to be quite a gift.
Again, this is another reason I think you should be listening to this record with headphones on. You really get swallowed up by everything when you do it that way.
This is part of what it's meant for. You're meant to get engulfed by everything that's given here.
The second track, "The Death of Chemistry", brings out a little bit of a harder-hitting beat, leaning further into the industrial aspect of things, in my opinion.
The vocals also have a little bit of a cleaner feel even though they still have loads of reverb on them, letting them sort of sink into the song and sound of everything.
But, there's a faster pace to the lyrical phrasing and rhythm of how this one comes across.
The vocals, along with a lot of the instrumentation, get more and more edgier, alternative, and intense as the song plays out.
This track, in particular, has quite a brilliant Sonic Sheen to it. There's a lot of drive behind this song, but it's a bit of a slow burn to get there.
Once again, they are growing the song into these more intense pinnacles, which is something they're absolutely amazing at.
Another thing this group is outstanding at his sound sculpting.
A lot of the instrumentation and even the vocals that you hear across the span of this record are played with. Nothing is dry. Everything is wet, affected, and molded into something that fits the aesthetic.
It may be reverb, decimation, distortion, delay, or anything else, but either way, you're getting something that you can tell didn't come out of the box that way.
There was a lot of attention to detail in terms of how the final product would feel. They wanted you to sink into the songs and be a part of them. They wanted you to feel that edgy dark tonality, hinting towards that occult approach, with loads of gothic underbelly, and it works.
I think there was a lot of thought put into this release, and they really created an addicting atmosphere for you to fall into.
These are songs that are built with fewer boundaries than whatever you may be used to; even if you love darker, gothic-based music, this again bends genres into something fresh.
They're not reinventing the wheel, but they're reshaping it. They're taking things that feel good and nostalgic, anyway, and bending them into something that feels like it's all their own.
I would definitely take a deep dive into these tracks as soon as you can, and while you're at it, check out some of the previous releases like "DOOM SCROLLERS vs HOLY ROLLERS", which bleeds way deeper into an alternative rock feel, still with the spacious, filmic, and vast undertone, and loads of depth.
There's a lot to check out from this band, and you should definitely do so.
So, dig in, and let's not forget where you heard it first.
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