Strap On Halo are a goth rock band from the goth scene. This is unfortunate, insofar as not even current goths are interested in current goth music — it’s a subculture of new clothes and old music.
As a musical form, goth stopped developing in the late ’80s and new bands past 1990 are a niche interest of a niche interest, judged on how well they recreate the old sound; what little evolution occurs and what little breaks through to the wider world comes from its nonidentical conjoined twin subculture industrial bothering the minor charts. Though even that’s been in a loop the past fifteen or so years. Metal keeps crossing back and forth with goth rock too, but that crossover works out … variably, because anything plus metal equals metal.
That said, they’re good enough at this that you won’t be wasting your time paying them attention. They know what they want to do and apply themselves to it with a much wider range than you’re probably thinking of from that description. “Perish” is a bouncy A-side, Layla Reyna’s voice (which doesn’t immediately invite comparisons to historical goth rock stars … though if I had to pick one, I’d pick Anja Huwe of Xmal) carries the band very effectively. The guitar work invites rather more comparisons, but carries them off. They don’t use unprocessed Roland sounds for drums. This is good independent music worth paying attention to. Though if they want said attention they probably need to push to the metallers harder than they’d like. Prayers for the Living and Altar of Interim; they also have some demos and a nice seasonal number.
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