Long-standing German goth rock/post-punk/ebm project Girls Under Glass are back with new material. After a hiatus of 17 years, the band have released Backdraft, a new full length, building on their sound from the 80s and 90s, but also including more recent elements.
Originally, as we have learned, the band and their label had planned to release a new EP to round of a new boxset of their collected works. But when the band started working on new material, they found that the songs developed effortlessly, that coming back together had reignited the creative fire. Thus, the planned EP turned into an LP. The experience of reignition and rejuvenation was so powerful, that they decided to name the album after it: A backdraft is a sudden explosion of fire that appears when a burning, oxygen-depleted environment is suddenly supplied with oxygen, for example by a door opening or a window bursting.
Starting out in 1986 in Hamburg, Germany, Girls Under Glass developed to be one of the major representatives of the German gothic and dark wave scene of the 1990s and early 2000s. Band members Volker “Zaphor” Zacharias, one of the band’s founders, and Axel Ermes ended up being also part of The Cassandra Complex after that outfit’s mastermind Rodney Orpheus produced one of the Germans’ albums. The resulting friendship and musical collaboration have lasted to this day, with Zacharias and Ermes being part of The Cassandra Complex’ current line up and also having been involved in the making of their positively-reviewed last album The Plague (2022).
From catchy gothic rock to electronic dark wave and up to melodic post-punk, there is a lot to like on Backdraft for fans of cold beats and dark atmospheres. While the music has a retro touch, the lyrics are firmly rooted in the here and now, reflecting on our strange reality. The lyrical focus provides instant relevance and places the band on one level with more recent goth rock and dark wave acts. A preoccupation with a future dystopia is certainly one characteristic of today’s goth music, with the scenes drawn in the lyrics seeming only slightly removed from today’s Western lives.
My favourite track on Backdraft is Tanz im Neonlicht where the soundscape creates an almost palpable picture of bodies twitching in cold light. Likewise danceable is the pre-released We Feel Alright having a similarly cold atmosphere, although not the same urgency. Worth singling out from an album with multiple highlights is also track number three, Tainted, for which no other but Mortiis has lent his croaky, raspy vocals.
Seeing one goth rock band emerge after the other, it feels like an understatement to say that goth is having a revival. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that goth rock with its inherent darkness and its melancholia seems to perfectly catch the spirit of our time. Girls Under Glass might haven been asleep for some time, but they woke up just at the right moment to connect the past and the present with the future.
Enjoy, dear fellow fans of thigs goth and dark.
(7.5/10 Slavica)
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