Shadows — Nosferatu
Label: 4AD Format: CD, Album Country: US Released: 2008 Genre: Electronic, Rock Style: Industrial, Goth Rock
The first blood-offering since the band signed to 4AD last year, Shadows is finally out in the UK this month after a staggering 12 month delay from the US release. Frankly? It wasn’t worth the wait. Nosferatu shot to obscurity back in the mid-90s with Vampyre’s Cry, and with no less than three different versions of the club hit bulking out this album, Shadows seems a thinly-veiled attempt to ride the last lingering pulse of that forgotten climax. As for the genuinely new stuff, well, it’s all danceable — Sorrow & Sadness being typical but surprisingly upbeat synthrape not-not-goth that’s become so popular of late (don’t ask me why), whereas Poe-Faced is the perfect backing track for you to jam your obese S.O. into that dimestore ‘corset’ you bought her. The Nos are so much more capable than this, and the fact they didn’t even bother to give their last track a name makes me wonder if this isn’t just an ironic, middle finger of apathy to an increasingly uninspired scene. One can only hope. 1/5
(review by Magnesia Stripp)
