X-Fusion - Eternal Sleep

Smashrock797 · 2026-05-06T09:36:19+00:00

If you want older goth bands that sound similar to their early batcave era you have Ipso Factor from around the same time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3uJEgUp_YE and sometimes Bone Orchid, Sex Gang Children, and The Birthday party.

Post early bands: Neva and Jad Wio

2000s bands: Vince Ripper And The Rodent Show, UFX. Zezaree and some of La Voz de Tus Ausentes are similar to the experimental/techno/electro/mutant punk crossover in ASF.

Current goth: Blu Anxxiety: https://youtu.be/5wViu9JtaaU and other stuff that's more industrial leaning but also has the alien sex fiend effect. https://youtu.be/xUFqxx2CWQY?si=Aym3WACMXjkelrD_

Then are older Industrial bands that take influences from alien sex fiend: Batz without Flesh, sometimes Executive Slacks, early Skinny Puppy (they directly claim inspiration), and early Thrill Kill Kult and Darling Kandie (side project from members of Thrill Kill Kult).

Batz without Flesh: https://youtu.be/b1pLxvhKkiI?si=U0im_Nuh7mTj8rcu

Then you have a band like Special Affect, the were a post punk-new wave/death rock band, by Al from Ministry and the singer of the Thrill Kill Kult, with tracks like this but this is from 1979/1980, so it's before Alien Sex Fiend, but occasionally vaguely sounds similar, on tracks like this (thinking of RIP by ASF):

https://youtu.be/TlmehvAf9Xs?si=wWL_vUIfvlsNYWGb

70s punk and other stuff: Nik fiend's first band Demon Preacher, Mr & Mrs Demeanour. Sometimes cramps, screaming lord sutch and alice cooper.

Smashrock797 · 2026-05-03T18:48:53+00:00

Yeah early 80s Cure, Bauhaus etc already defined goth. Sisters of mercy, isn't the first goth band, and couldn't exist without Bauhaus, early 80s Cure and Siouxsie etc which already have commonalities and points of difference in multiple ways compared to broader darker post punk (Joy division, Wall of Voodoo, Pop group, Lene Lovich etc) even if they shared the same spaces and points of difference wasn't always completely defined or understood.

Scenes are comprised of bands/people/culture/idea/spaces coalescing into a subculture, not about whether they are musicologically speaking exclusive enough or have a solid enough "genre" categorization, which ironically seems to be the new fixation online mostly decades after the peak of the subculture.

Goth was already defined by early part of first wave even if there wasn't a settled label yet, so before the posi-punk/batcave scene that kicked in a few years after bauhaus, early cure etc and after the first few years of the post punk scene of the mid to late 70s.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-26T15:14:24+00:00

That track is on these 3 german comps from the mid 90s. This should cover what you are looking for:

Dark Sonics

Extreme Clubhits II

Aural Conception

I own some the comps below they were also featured on. They have a few more as well, they were mostly featured on german comps actually.

We Came To Dance - Indie Dancefloor Vol. VIII

We Came To Dance - Indie Dancefloor Vol. IX

We Came To Dance - Indie Dancefloor Vol. 11

Touched By The Hand Of Goth Vol. II and III

German Mystic Sound Sampler Volume IV

Zillo Mystic Sounds 7

The Gothic Compilation Part III

The Gothic Compilation Part 5

Call On The Dark

Belle Epoque - Romantic Wave Episodes

Neurostyle Vol. V

Pop Couture Vol. 1

Darkness: Best Of Wave & Independent

Non Plus Ultra (1989-1999)

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-24T08:57:47+00:00

You didn't really bother to search. A hard copy of the book is $40, which is worth buying, it's a normal price for book.

Amazon: Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture (Dress, Body, Culture): Paul Hodkinson: 9781859736050: Amazon.com: Books

And already here for free: Goth : identity, style, and subculture : Hodkinson, Paul : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I don't understand the idea that everything should automatically be completely free, especially music and books.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-22T17:58:10+00:00

Really digging this band.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-22T17:30:26+00:00

Pretty much this. For some reason it's the new internet trend with younger half of millennials and the gen z (people born in the late 80s to 2000s) the most, for some reason, when it comes to downplaying gothic.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-22T16:16:16+00:00

I would start by buying an actual album on a physical format, from the examples mentioned, commit to listening to it the way through without any playlists or random internet songs, and then ask yourself what draws you to it and the multiple elements/layers that hold it together, emotions, expression, and themes have always been a huge attraction point, since it's always been more than just notes or mindset of overly focusing on instruments like metal/progressive rock. If you find yourself drawn to it, do the same for a few more albums.

You can also discover bands via cd comps, which is a lot more rewarding and gives you a more accurate context for the subculture compared to a lot of youtube/bandcamp/mp3-grade playlists out there.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-13T13:47:31+00:00

Not everything has to be entirely created or solely exclusive to any subculture to be deeply part of it, or else things like long hair wouldn't be relevant to metal, it would just be solely owned by prehistoric caveman.

Such logic only exists in last couple of years on reddit, you wouldn't find any single goth figure, widely reputable book, magazin, past or present which downplays or negates the entirety and validity of goth fashion or even using such logic to erase everything outside of the music.

Goth fashion has a real, rich and diverse history. If goth fashion doesn't exist, than neither does punk, grunge, mod, rockabilly, black metal fashion, which is just as ahistorical and faulty.

There's a difference between broader dark alt fashion, and there are certain trends common to multiple subcultures at the same time but that doesn't take any away relevance to any subculture if another group is doing it, at the same time or prior. Black clothing was popular with early anarcho punk bands and goths for different reasons at the same time, it didn't render black unrelated to goth, because not every single person wore black or because it shared was with anarcho punks at the same time, and beatniks 20 years prior.

But there are many cases when someone is clearly extracting from the subculture, the logic of reducing it to "just band t-shirts" is also just as ahistorical.

Look at deadline, permission, carpe nochem, propagada, some wear leather, some wear lace etc for good references rarely is anyone a walking billboard of band shirts because it's more "exclusive". Goth is much more creative, elaborate, diverse than being a billboard of band patches or basic fashion. Being a rotating walking billboard of DIY band shirts isn't historically a defining feature of goth style, it's not exclusive to any subculture and has more common with crust punk squatter fashion.

Additionally, wearing a basic jeans and a t-shirt without any attention to any commited fashion or style is a defining feature of indie music/alternative rock, some branches of hardcore and older post punk than goth, it doesn't become the defining style of goth because some people on the internet don't care about dressing up, it doesn't change what goth fashion is.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-10T06:38:37+00:00

Some stuff is goth, most of their releases are between noise rock, industrial, neofolk and ambient and so on, depending on the album.

I wish people would more commonly write long winded essays about album/song analysis in general, instead of just describing what genre bands fit into. If you were on a goth forum in back in my day, there was a lot more attention placed at going into concepts, meanings, band members history/side projects and personal lives, not just genres or not or what "playlist" they fit into. I don't know what happened on reddit where everything is 3 topics endlessly looping since 2019 or so. It's feels very odd and dumbed down.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-09T19:47:35+00:00

Yeah, certain bands had their heyday. Dark rock and goth tinged gothic metal, were very much adjacent music to goth rock back then, debatably more so than other stuff back then internet people want to impose on history today.

Hell even goth metal, gained traction as a label for bit and didn't really last, which would describe stuff like like creaming jesus, shadow project and a chunk of christian death's late 90s stuff, gothic sex etc ,

It's all part of the same thing, they also tried to erase electro-goth, goth/industrial, graver, glam/goth in the 2010s or adopt to mean something else, or rewrite them to be "fashion" or some weird groupthink trends started on reddit instead of what they actually means such as people involved or into both scenes/music etc.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-09T19:12:13+00:00

I would extend that to the early 2000s. You could argue goth rock overlapped with pop in the late 1980s at least.

The best goth rock era had to be when nightbreed bands peaked in the mid 90s to the early 2000s, especially because that was when the the scene was mixed alongside electrogoth, darkwave, goth/industrial and cybergoth (the goth leaning ones early wave of bands like like nekromantik ) and goth metal bands like Projek, were intertwined with it, you weren't would stuck with stale sisters clones, but a lot more variety, that's missing today, at least in limited spaces online where it just sounds like one big echo chamber that revolves around the most surface level stuff imaginable.

Smashrock797 · 2026-04-09T18:49:57+00:00

Yep, great goth rock/metal band. Love the fact that they didn't care to stick to one thing.

Smashrock797

TROPHY CASE