COVVES – Fever
The idea of niche music genres not being able to cross over into the mainstream is ridiculous. The history of pop music is, if anything, a history of oddities and novelties that reached immense fame.
It’s only natural that all the documentaries about bands getting big against the odds are so damn popular. It’s a story that applies to the vast majority of noteworthy performers.
But isn’t anyone playing it safe? Yes, of course they are. That’s the vast majority of pop artists, in fact. But history isn’t very kind to them. Few remember the safe, radio-pleasing pop singles of the 1990s. And, nobody, except, perhaps, for the people who made them, still listen to them.
COVVES takes a lot of inspiration from niche music genres that deal with darkness. No, gothic-rock, per se, isn’t in the charts. But the mood, dynamics and ideas of those styles of music have always been in the charts. COVVES understands that melancholy, moodiness and a touch of mystery are things that audiences always need. “Fever” is a blend of pop-flavoured melodies and the dark side. And it all makes sense.
Porcelain Dancer – Poison Cloud
The early history of rock music was simply an attempt to make everything sound louder and faster and to fill up auditory real estate. In fact, many of the musical genres that seemed cutting-edge at the time of their inception were just strategies to play louder, faster, or have the singers deliver harsher, more unwelcoming vocals.
And while that’s all fine, ominous messengers telling us about future plans that are about to be disrupted deserved an entirely different soundtrack. That tension and the allure of bad news is something that most people feel nowadays. When, not if those harbingers of doom finally arrive, we’ll need to meet them with a calm sense of inevitability. Fast, loud music won’t cut it.
Porcelain Dancer’s “Poison Cloud” is sinister, seductive, classic gothic-rock. It sounds like music that was created by clearing out all unneeded elements. The groove is slow and repetitive. The bass lines play hypnotically, almost in a loop. The vocals fall down to the lowest register that will suit the message. If you’re walking on the dark night when Armageddon finally starts, it’s this kind of sound that you’ll want to be following you wherever you go.
