Track Listing: Dent, Going Back, Bed, Think, Phone, Feeling Here (Vocals - Melissa Mileski), Her Name (Vocals - Brianna Westfall), Aparent, Kept, Cell, Scathed, Flu (Vocals - Brianna Westfall ), Expose (Vocals - Melissa Mileski), Eleven Toes, Charisma, Wish You Were Here.

It is difficult to adequately describe this album; it is so full of paradox and contradiction. For starters, it is a high quality low-fi production, possessing a certain raw edge to its supple refinement. Then there are the relentlessly languorous tempi, which nevertheless bloom into intense emotive swells. The music is compelling without being insistent, often dangerously hypnotic when it isn’t being sensitive and melodic. Sometimes it is both. And the subject matter... how can one stare with an unruffled calm into the face of something that should make your hair stand on end. It makes it all feel somehow... immortal. The performers seem addicted to a mournful sadness that nevertheless has them joyful to languish in its beauty.

And those performers would consist of: Menton J Matthews III, whose project this appears to be, on cello, guitar... (maybe upright bass and violin?)... and various programmable electronic instruments as well as, I am assuming, male background vocals and spoken word interludes.

The main female singer is Sarah Matthews, though there are a couple others among the many tracks on this CD. This is her first group, and her influences are diverse, which may explain the fresh angles she brings to this sort of singing.

These two are joined by impeccable drummer, Chandler Rentz, formerly of the legendary Atlanta band The Changelings. I am not sure if he does all the drumming though, since there seem to be some loops as well.

Some fans of Sunday Munich mourn the lack of dancy tracks, which were a mainstay of their earlier work. Personally, I think such additions would adulterate the incredible mood and tonality of the album. Beaucoups frissons.

For more information, visit the band website or their MySpace page.

Track Listing: Auszug / March Out, Krypta / Crypt, Sieg / Victory, Der Bau / Constitution, Freiheitswacht / Guards Of Freedom, Krönung / Coronation, Wiedergeburt / Rebirth, Weihe / Consecration.

“Composed for the grand opening ceremony of the 16th Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig on Friday 25th May, 2007” (blurb from an artist website), this band, which is essentially a duo of identical twin brothers, has been around, like, forever. I gather they were initially some kind of punk/industrial/techno act from the very early 80s. They have developed into highly skilled filmscore composers, who still produce dance oriented side projects.

This current music is of that genre the gothic community refers to often as neo-classical (which it is decidedly not, being a long way from Stravinsky et al). It is also referred to as ‘bombastic’ and ‘martial’, the latter, I suppose, due to the evocation of great heroic classical music. ITN evokes heroic classics amazingly well, and is certainly bombastic. Other material of theirs I have heard contains salient electronica and FX in addition to synthesizers doing classical instrumentation, but this release has little of that. It sounds a lot like a full orchestra of acoustic instruments.

For more information, visit the band website or their MySpace page or their Wikipedia entry.

Track Listing: Enraptured Serene Mesmerism, Seductress Mesmerised, Nereida Temptressa, Sirenia Allure, Seduced In Reverie, Sirenia Enchanted, Entrancing Of The Nereid, Mesmeric Seduction.

This album seems more to be about the state indicated in the title than actually inducing that state – a sort of paean to sex enhanced by powers. It is a project of Pandelis, a Greek ambient composer who has been involved with metal bands as well as Greek folk groups. This release is available only as a download from the Fossil Dungeon.

The music would fall into the neo-classical/bombastic/martial genre previously touched upon. It is mostly lush synth pads with synth harpsichord over which a very nice operatic female voice soars and entwines sans actual lyrics, except for the occasional male spoken word intoning ritualistically. The music is more about inducing a mood and sustaining it, and hence has very little thematic development or anything like crescendo/diminuendo or song structure. It just sort of floats there being huge and mysterious. A little too much of the same thing for me, and not particularly evocative, since almost any of the tracks could be substituted for any other and achieve the same result.

For more information, visit their MySpace page.

Track Listing: Transcend, Painted Blue, Stop Me Now, On My Own, The Seventh Door, Fear Leading Life, Something More, Bleed, Before the Night’s Through.

Another Fossil Dungeon release, easily the most gothly offering of the month’s In Rotation. This male duo is very high on dramatic posturing and emotional pathos. The vocals often rely on a keening, plaintive outcry that doesn’t always work, but is very effective when it does. The musical side is comprised of guitar and much synthesized electonica. The song structures and overall tonality are strongly influenced by early goth era bands without being a mere rehash of bygone sounds. The material is dark, but not suicidally so, and the heart-on-sleeve emotional content reminds me of why the old goth bands were so revered by their angst driven fans.

For more information, visit their MySpace page.