The Essential: The Last Days of Jesus
These are troubling times, people. These are the days where one can hear no fewer than 3 Combichrist songs in one goth night and hear someone say “what the hell is this” when The Cure are played. These are times when one can go an entire hour without hearing a single vocal. Isn’t anybody doing punky goth anymore?
Well, yeah. It’s just that Gothic Beauty magazine is too busy covering The Cruxshadows to tell you about it.
On the goth timeline, we see…
1. The five seconds in the 70s when people used pipe organ with no sense of irony
2. “We’re kinda serious, but not really” pipe organ a la London After Midnight or Nosferatu
3. “Not only are we not serious, we are openly wearing polka dots. We don’t just watch Killer Klowns From Outer Space, we ARE Killer Klowns From Outer Space.”
Case in point today are The Last Days of Jesus. Their label’s web site describes them as “shizzo deathrock,” but that seems a tad serious for a band who starts a song with “gimme some spooky organ, man.” Here are some of my suggestions for how to describe my second-favorite subgenre:
Psycho Clown Car
Muppet Murder
Devil’s Polka
That is to say, they do the kind of music that makes you picture Muppets dancing in a musical number featuring circus freaks and that puppet from Saw. TLDOJ’s singer went to the Rozz Williams school of gothsing, with a minor in Peter Murphy. Electives: makeup, effective use of bouncy pipe organ. If your favorite Bauhaus song is “Watch That Grandad Go,” if your favorite Cure song is “So What” (half credit for “Meathook”), or if you find lime green inexplicably hilarious, I strongly suggest a listen. It’s a hell of a lot more fun than listening to amelodic songs in which some dude repeatedly yells “Christfuck! Christfuck!” Ain’t no damn irony in that.**
**Not to mention that it’s a little on the nose, don’t you think? I envision Wumpscut holding a focus group to see what song title will be more offensive. “Christ” or “Fuck?” Why decide? Pick “Christfuck!” Great taste! Less filling!
