What Genre Is This?
The year 2018 has passed. It was eventful and rich, and overall a happy year for me. Much was done for the band, and something came out of it as well. We're not there yet, and might never be, but I think we are on the right track, and steadily advancing.
We started working on our first album in spring. It's not done yet, but we're getting there. Half of it is already recorded, mixed and mastered, the other half is coming along soon. I cannot yet give a date or a promise there of, but I will as soon as the end of the process seems to be in the vicinity...
Our first video, A Night Like This, was shot and edited with the help of our friends in Videoketju. It was a first for me, except for the one done for Rautavaara X, where I played the innocent girl in white.
We played a first major gig at Lumous Gothic Festival, Tampere in summer. The whole event was awesome, and I'll definitely be there next summer as well. Hopefully other such events and opportunities will show themselves in HC calendar.
August was spent in warmth and sunlight, organizing material into new songs and creating wholly new material as well. The songs will be heard on HC second album, if we ever get there. We also shot material for Siouxsie on the Beach video, which has now been released on Youtube. The rest and change of environment was needed, and gave me energy and strength for the rest of the year, but I think I had not realized how exhausted I really was before the trip.
When home again, everyday life felt kind of heavy and things seemed to be at exactly the same point as before, not moving at all. But of course they were moving, because we were able to organize yet another gig in October. It was generally a success and we had fun. Hopefully everyone else did too...
Two more songs were released and they received good feedback although they didn't spread that widely. At the end of the year we also released the Siouxsie on the Beach video. Somehow it received more watches and feedback than all the other stuff before. Maybe the work done hitherto is gradually paying of. Still, some serious work needs yet to be done about that spreading issue. Maybe the release of my interview at Lumous helped a bit? Sorry, it's in Finnish. There's also Marko from Chaos Research and Jyrki Witch from Two Witches/Lumous. Listen to it here:
https://soundcloud.com/mieletontavaloa/raskausaika-xx
https://soundcloud.com/mieletontavaloa/raskausaika-xx
Last thing to happen before the year's end was entering the Europe wide band happening, Emergenza. It's a kind of a competition, but I can't really say it out loud. The guitarist threatened to leave, if I do. Seriously! No. The first round will be here in Turku february 16th 2019. There are nearly forty bands entering the event from Turku alone, so I won't waste too much energy on hoping that we'll even get to the next round. I'll just concentrate to make the performance as good and energetic as possible, and the audience will then decide by voting.
It's just a hunch, but I think genre will play some part in that voting too. I hope, of course, that people will hear and see just the music and performance, but it is a fact, that this music and this genre is not the easiest and doesn't necessarily speak to the masses. So what genre are we then speaking about?
I have named it Gothic Rock, which would represent the widest possible umbrella. It's just the general direction, not merely rock, but Gothic Rock. Some of our songs have that same general tone and even structure as HIM or 69 Eyes, which I consider the most main stream Gothic Rock at least here in Finland. In this concept releasing A Night Like This as our first single seemed a safe option. There is something in that song that anyone can relate to.
But then there are all the other songs, like Siouxsie and She Smiles, which represent a whole other spectrum. Siouxsie must be our most Indie song, while it's constructed like a Cure song. She Smiles is a near-metal track with it's heavy guitar riffs. But it's not typical Metal, and in retrospect, Siouxsie and The Banshees must be it's most important influence. So, we're not fully a Metal band, although it does influence our music, and neither are we truly Indie. And there are just too much basic Rock elements to put it under any other Gothic label, say Cold Wave for example.
The very thing I refuse us to be in any sense, is Gothic Metal. That term has really suffered an inflation in my opinion, and is nowadays used to describe mainly Symphonic Metal bands with a female vocalist. Hateful Chains has nothing to do with that music. The one other term that I think leads astray is Alternative Rock. That too refers to a number of bands that have nothing what so ever to do with this music. I've even heard comments that we have strong Stoner Metal vibes. All I can really say on that is that it's certainly not something we strive to do, and that I'm not very familiar with that genre either.
I'd like to think that this is Gothic Rock simply because I want to make such music, and it's the base line where I start with every song, what ever influences and elements I then take from other genres, and what ever then happens to the song when arranging and producing it to it's final form. There are some key elements which I consider the main factors of Gothic Rock and try to include in any song I make, for example, the chorus effect in guitars and certain types of vocals.
It's also Gothic Rock because most of our influences are those bands that have defined the whole Gothic subculture, from the very start, to this day. I'd like to dedicate a whole post to those bands, but to name a few, there's of course Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, The Fields of the Nephilim, London After Midnight...Then there are a few odd bands many of you may not have heard about, but are very important to me: Saviour Machine, Virgin Black and The Awakening...phew, that's a lot already!
Finally, although some might argue against it, I think the lyrics and the general visual elements around our music are gothic too. I don't mean horror elements, or fantasy, but the general feeling of something being "off" or weird in a spooky way. Some work can and should still be done to actualize that feeling even better, but we're getting there, I think. In the end, it's the combination of music, lyrics and visual, that make the whole, and that combination, I think, is Gothic Rock. Whether or not that proves to be true is ultimately up to the listeners, that is, you.
So, in 2019 we are entering a band competition as a Gothic Rock band, and take yet another step forward. Have a rich, happy and eventful year everyone!
Hypnosis
