DAVID R BLACK - SECRET CITY
1000 Watt Recordings

David R Black are a band who seem to have been around forever – I certainly remember reviewing a couple of their CDs for late, lamented music site Noise Culture the best part of a decade ago. That they are still at it is a testament to their bloody-minded determination in the face of what has generally seemed like media indifference. And I assume it’s this longevity and relative obscurity that has allowed the band to hone their sound, developing into a solid unit.

Their brand of poppy goth metal invariably invites comparisons to HIM (something I’m sure they hate, but what can you do?), the pioneers of ‘love metal’ and other equally ridiculous labels for what it effectively a lightweight goth metal sound (and ‘lightweight’ is not a sleight here). I’ve heard several HIM-lite bands over the years – for work reasons, I should point out – and most of them were like the ‘meat’ you find in a Big Mac – flat, lifeless, flavourless imitations of the real thing. So it’s a tribute to David R Black that they have managed to transcend their contemporaries and develop their own niche, combining influences of metal, goth, indie and art rock into a pretty satisfying whole.

So to Secret City, their fourth album, which mixes catchy, punchy rockers with tracks that have more of an Eighties alt. goth flavour – with added guitar riffs – such as album closer Ezra, which you can easily picture being performed to confused New Romantics on Top of the Pops by a band with interesting haircuts, possibly wearing kilts and waving some sort of flag. Listen carefully, and you’ll find bits of everything from Psychedelic Furs to Killing Joke to Placebo (always an influence on the band), with sudden and unexpected intrusions of angular art-rocking guitar solos and the odd acoustic ballad like the haunting Another Day.

It doesn’t all work – Take It All suffers from some dreadful ‘backing’ vocals that are way too high in the mix, for instance, and by default, the band are always only a few steps from falling into some ghastly Emo hole – a fate they thankfully manage to avoid, though they sometimes dance very close to the edge. But on the whole, this is very solid effort that sounds very much like the work of a band who have been plugging away, learning their craft and developing their sound for longer than most arena-filling bands even last.

DAVID FLINT

BUY IT NOW (UK)