Liminal Gothic Prog Rock/Metal

[LithoJazzoSphere]

A number of different things recently have inspired me to come up with this idea that I've been dancing around the edges of for years - decades, really.  When I got into the Euro metal scene in the early 00s there was this slant of it that for awhile I would come to call "semi-gothic" or "half-gothic".  I'm not even entirely sure what I thought I meant at the time, given how relatively little I knew back then.  Now I know far more (though there's always a ton more to learn) and realize I was hitting on a rather interesting idea that is more accurate than I had any justifiable reason to realize at the time.  But it applies particularly to bands with difficult to define genres like Katatonia, Anathema, and others.

The concept of liminality deals with things that exist at the borders of multiple categories, and that describes everything here.  "Gothic" is a rather amorphous and contentious stylistic term, as is "progressive", and the boundary between rock and metal is likewise at times quite fluid.  This music is situated somewhere in the intersection of all three, which is to me what makes it so enthralling and is some of my favorite music, given that I also like a lot of music from the originating styles.  Genre purists would disagree that some of it actually counts as either "gothic" or "progressive", but I tend to take a broader view and see clear influences or at least coincidental adjacencies in each song here. 

Putting a few of these artists on surprised me, because I did not expect them to work, but they either fit the mood or had a striking number of overlapping elements, though some are a bit questionable.  Some bands on the list only have a small amount of material that is appropriate for it, others pretty much continuously revel in it.  Even for some artist names you might be somewhat familiar with this could be a slightly different side of them than you're accustomed to.  It was a challenge to strike a balance between emphasizing the gothic side of their sound vs. the progressive facet vs. just selecting a song I liked most, and I probably got it wrong or overlooked a more apropos song in some cases, but it's a good start anyway.  A few of them I suspect might have even more relevant songs, and this could be a launching point to revisit their discographies to hunt for them. 

The intention is for discussion, though I know for the majority of people here most things gothic-related are a bit out of their wheelhouse.  Regardless, this is probably my favorite playlist I've made yet.  I'm open to other suggestions to look into as well.  There are a lot of bands I know could potentially work for the playlist, but I can't think of the right song to select offhand without listening to or revisiting their albums again. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3WoIETMZHn6g68MLOBboj4

And two songs not on Spotify:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLISicXPLSax_WzVvRMZ-yaczlxKJirPVS

Here's the list for those who don't want to deal with Spotify links. 

After Forever - "The Key"
Akphaezya - "Sophrosyne"
All About Eve - "December"
Amorphis - "Alone"
Anathema - "Fragile Dreams"
Autumn - "A Minor Dance"
Cardamon - "Common State of Mind"
Crippled Black Phoenix - "Cry of Love"
Dark Tranquillity - "Nether Novas"
Dissona - "Totality"
Dool - "Sumerland"
Draconian - "Dishearten"
Dreamgrave - "Monuments"
Elysion - "Blink of An Eye"
Evergrey - "Mark of the Triangle"
Green Carnation - "Leaves of Yesteryear"
Iced Earth - "Burnt Offerings"
Inno - "Pale Dead Sky"
Katatonia - "Serac"
Kingfisher Sky - "Persephone"
Lacuna Coil - "1:19"
Lenore S. Fingers - "Victoria"
Madder Mortem - "Ten Times Defeat"
Nevermore - "Cenotaph"
Nightingale - "Nightfall Overture"
Novembers Doom - "The Clearing Blind"
Oceans of Slumber - "A Return To the Earth Below"
Odyssey - "Amon-Ra"
Paradise Lost - "Yearn For Change"
Portal - "Cosmos"
Ram-Zet - "Closing Memory"
Reveries End - "Reveries End"
Rocket Moth - "Silver Lines"
Root - "The Message Of the Time"
Santa Sabina - "Olvido"
Saviour Machine - "Killer"
Sentenced - "End of the Road"
Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Rhapsody"
Stream of Passion - "Calliopeia"
Swallow the Sun - "Hold This Woe"
Thalarion - "A Herald of Sorrow & Wretchedness"
The Foreshadowing - "The Fall"
The Gathering - "Leaves"
The Great Discord - "Persona"
The Provenance - "Some Gossip On Stealing a Spouse"
The Third and the Mortal - "Salva Me"
Therion - "Nightside of Eden"
Tribulation - "Leviathans"
Vetrar Draugurinn - "Vigil (For the Lost Children of Our Generation)"
Warrel Dane - "Rain"
Witherscape - "The Wedlock Observation"
Woods of Ypres - "Lightning & Snow"

[nick_z]

Oh man, this is a GREAT playlist. I don't know every single song on it, but I'm familiar with most and this is a sound (however difficult to define exactly, as you correctly note) that truly hits the spot for me.

I have said it numerous times here, but a lot of it comes from the time period where I was discovering a ton of music. I'd say 1992 through 1996-7 was kinda magical that way, for me. I know that not all of the bands/songs in the playlist are from that period, but that kind of original take on both the prog and the gothic/dark aspects of music was quite prevalent then.

Funny how there's a bunch of the songs in the playlist I have been listening to in the past few weeks...Green Carnation's Leaves of Yesteryear (plus others), Paradise Lost (obviously), Sentenced (obviously, part #2), Anathema (Fragile Dreams is so, so good), Saviour Machine...even Madder Mortem...funnily enough, I had All Flesh is Grass on the other day, and I was thinking how Ten Times Defeat is the highlight on it. Therion too - Theli is (by far) my favorite of their albums, and Nightside of Eden is great (doesn't hurt than Dan Swano is on it too) - by the way, spoiler alert, I might have sent Tim something from that album in the current round  Plus, um, something else from this list (not the exact song, but still...). We won't tell 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Yeah, you sending Sentenced and Paradise Lost was part of the impetus for working on this.  You're way more familiar with PL than I am, so I'd never really realized that their music does have proggy aspects at times.  The observation about the Peart-like drumming and TAC's noting of the Rush-esque chorus on that track made a light go off and I think it's close enough to work. 

Similar with Sentenced, on the whole I certainly wouldn't call them a prog metal band, but in revisiting their discography I had an epiphany that that particular track has an unusual structure with the tempo shift and uncommonly dexterous solo for them in that era, so it was one of the surprises of inclusion. 

[nick_z]

Great pick with Nevermore's Cenotaph, by the way. I remember the first time listening to Dreaming Neon Black and totally thinking that song was bordering gothic metal 

To stay in that general vicinity - I know you probably want to stick to one song per artist, but seeing you included a song by Warrel Dane...just for the fun of discussion, another one I think fits the theme well is This Old Man, from Praises to the War Machine. LOVE his singing on that one, and the clean guitars in the verses...and when the main riff comes in...delicious. Anyway, that one feels emotional and "proggy" in just the right way...

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Yeah, I'm quite surprised how little the gothic influences on them were pointed out over the years.  Particularly when Warrel leaned hard into it in covering Sisters of Mercy's "Lucretia My Reflection" and Nevermore covering Bauhaus' "Silent Hedges/Double Dare." 

"This Old Man" is another good one.  If I included multiple songs it might work.  It just doesn't hit either side quite as much as "Rain" does, since Warrel's band was trying hard to emulate Nevermore on that album, whereas Wichers' writing style is more streamlined. 

[twosuitsluke]

Is this the thread version of you two 'getting a room'?

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Just you wait until I find a KGLW song that fits on this playlist.  Just by sheer accident they're going to stumble into one someday with the volume of material they write. 

[nick_z]

Is this the thread version of you two 'getting a room'?

 

[nick_z]

Litho - how familiar are you with Moonspell? Happy to provide some more context if needed, but for now let's just say they were another one of those bands that released albums I LOVED during the 90s, especially. Their first three records are all so different, and all great.

For the purpose of this topic/playlist, you should check out the song "Abysmo", from their third record Sin/Pecado (and "Mute" too).

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I've heard a decent number of their albums and have a handful of favorite songs of theirs, but don't know them deeply even to realize they had anything that would work for this playlist.  There are a fair number of other artists like that from one side or the other.  I'll check those out. 

[Grappler]

Novembers Doom is the shit.  Local boys!   

[TAC]

Litho, I'll have to revisit this thread after my roulette. It looks interesting.