Goth music just doesn't get old. That's one of the advantages of being down with the undead, I guess. But it does have a tendency to get rather tedious and redundant. Is there anything
the Sisters of Mercy haven't done better? For this reason, many goths switched to ultra-epic trance as their mope-dance soundtrack of choice. But with this vintage-sounding album by a rather new duo from Canada, it seems possible that true synth-minded, goth-tinged EBM might actually come back into style.
Droom manage to lift the best of '80s synth pop, driving industrial drum rhythms, crunchy guitars that could belong to a pre-metal
Ministry, or some six-stompbox-deep shoegazing noise merchant and vocals that sound like a less affected
Peter Murphy and a much less affected Andrew Eldritch. Granted, Graham Jackson still sings lines like "we keep ourselves entertained/with the bloodstained blades of bayonets and knives," but at least he does it without trying to sound like Count Chocula. "As If" almost has the sentimentality of a
Depeche Mode B-side, which is actually saying a lot. Yes, there is some rapid-fire lead-synth programming for those who have become accustomed to such trance-like elements, but this stuff is relatively pure-'80s goth-industrial which deserves far more than the belittling it often gets from critics just like me. ~ Joshua Glazer