FEB 14

Maybe I'll just post this every Valentine's Day, because why the fuck not?

DECADES / FAILURES - February 14th

My third D / F post. Words like sublime can come off as eye-rollingly wanky when used to describe things that don't warrant them. This track earns that descriptor in spades, as well as other typically hyperbolic words like "transcendent". There's a lot of people out there fiddling with knobs and programming computers, but very few of them are making music with the depth of feeling that Adam and Alexis are (though I think "February 14th" was recorded before Alexis came aboard). DECADES / FAILURES aren't faking it. This is the real deal.

Lupercalia and Martyrdom

Fucking Summer, Right?

Going by the Australian system of calendar-based reckoning, tomorrow marks the exact middle of winter here. It's cold, I'm huddled next to my crappy little oil heater and my ears are still ringing from Jucifer's insanely loud set in Newtown last night. The notorious husband-and-wife duo were every bit as mesmerising and powerful as their reputation suggests, and as usual San Francisco's Black Cobra didn't disappoint either.

My ears are still full of Gazelle Amber Valentine's distortion, but the music I can't get out of my head today is this perfect new track from Decades/Failures, "Fucking Summer, Right". It sounds like the anthem to some lost David Lynch road movie, and it's full of the lazy dreaminess of a hot summer's day after a few beers in the sun. I want to be there right now.

DECADES/FAILURES

I've lost count of the number of amazing bands that I've discovered over the years at Robert Collins' Terminal Escape blog. A ton of incredible punk and hardcore bands, but also some essential post-punk and new wave. My latest obsession to be unearthed from the Escape is one of the latter, cold wave goth duo Decades/Failures.

Comprised of Adam Ryan and Alexis Ivy, Richmond, Virginia's Decades/Failures create dreamy, gothed-out darkwave that, like Total Control, manages to teeter skillfully on the edge of wistful retro without falling into the pit of useless nostalgia. Like all the good '80s inspired new wave and post-punk stuff to come out of the DIY punk scene in recent years, this isn't just trendy emulation. Along with their peers, this band is taking something familiar and sincerely striving to build on it and go somewhere new. If you're paying attention it should be obvious that that ethos, as well as the music's attitudes and themes, make these "soft" sounds just as punk as this week's new Discharge or Infest clone. 

And this shit is dark. The lyrics read like a cry for help or a suicide note, an admission of complete hopelessness, pain and suffering. 

Decades/Failures new album G00DBY3 opens with "White Walls", and the drone and metronomic beat might have you feeling like you're in New York circa 1997, waiting for the Duke to arrive. However, as soon as the vocals kick in you know you're in gothic, rather than '80s sci-fi territory. By the time the relentlessly simple guitar and synth riff in "Fractured" gets into your head, you're hooked. The melancholy throb and dreamy synth passages of "Secret Superstitions" seal the deal. You might as well resign yourself to the fact that you're gonna need this from now on. It's a bad drug, but it feels so, so good. Buy/stream at bandcamp below.

EVERY DAY IS THE SAME