SPELLBOUND: A GOTHIC ROCK COMPENDIUM - HARDCOVER - BOOK

Forget what you think you know about goth. Rather than a movement to mope to, goth’s aesthetics are ever-evolving, encompassing fashion, architecture, literature, cinema, and art. But it’s music that is the beating heart of this unearthly subculture. 

Written by veteran music journalist and cultural historian Wesley Doyle—with a foreword by Wayne Hussey of The Mission and The Sisters of Mercy and design by Chris Bigg of 4AD Records/Beggars Banquet– the book traces goth's journey from rock's first shadows to a truly global subculture. 

In the UK, ‘80s post-punk slithered inexorably towards darker modes of expression. Out of the darkness of industrial West Yorkshire came The Sisters Of Mercy and The March Violets; the flatfields of the East Midlands gave us Bauhaus and UK Decay, while the scene coalesced in London’s Square Mile of Sin at Soho’s Batcave with Specimen and Alien Sex Fiend. At the same time, artists in places as far-flung as LA, Tokyo, and Madrid were creating tenebrous evocations to express their politics, both personal and otherwise.

Received wisdom holds that this peaked in the mid ‘80s and that goth was then brushed aside by grunge and dance culture. The dark truth is that it scuttled back to the shadows to reconfigure into a bewildering number of sub-genres. In the ‘90s, goth operated in the margins, creating a support network of fanzines and safe spaces that grew stronger with the advent of the Internet.

Now, goth is truly global. OGs (original goths) The Cure, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie Sioux are bigger than ever, while their influence is writ large across a new generation of artists. Goth has yet again risen from the dead.

From the end of the ‘60s counterculture dream, through ‘70s glam rock and post-punk, ‘80s mainstream domination, ‘90s alternative underground, and ‘00s Mitteleuropean rebirth, goth’s tendrils have crawled their way into post-rock, doom-folk, pop-punk, trip-hop, shoegaze, etherpop, and cold wave, to become an essential mode of expression for a fractured 21st century.