The Ladies of Goth

The Awakening

Goth is a culture associated with death, paranormal, darkness and oddness. It is a style that is not really thorough accepted by most of the people who will have a chance to be exposed to it. For me? it is a reflection of being eccentric and being open-minded to all sorts of ideas, be it negative or positive in nature. You can see goth influence in so many aspects such as Arts, Fashion, Literary Works and most of all Music.

Gothic Rock, a genre that was developed way back 1970's and comprises of two sub-genres which are post punk and alternative rock. The poetic side of the gothic rock lyrics includes romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and/or supernatural mysticism. Gothic singers usually has a deep and dramatic vocal timbre in order to give justice to this sound, an example of such is David Bowie. Moving on, it also became a smash hit to all those female fans out there which pave the way of bands that are being formed with a lady singer. Who would not recognize the songs of Evanescence? I bet almost all of us do. However, do you know that Europe is the home of the greatest female gothic bands out there?

Lacuna Coil - an italian gothic band which was inspired by gothic imagery and music and was co-led by Cristina Adriana Chiara Scabbia who was also featured in Megadeth's song "A toute le monde" and Apocalyptica's S.O.S.

 Nightwish - a symphonic metal from Findland that mainly concentrates with mythological and fantasy themes. Anette Ingegerd Olzon, is a swedish soprano singer who became the lead vocalist after Tarja Turunen left the band. 

Within Temptation - a dutch symphonic metal band that was founded way back 1996. that defines their work as epic and cinematic According to them they do not want to be called a gothic rock band rather a symphonic rock band. Nevertheless, people are still recognizing them to be part of this particular genre.  Sharon Den Adel, a mezzo-soprano dutch singer is the lead vocalist of this band. She previously worked for a fashion company and decided to quit after the success of their song "Ice Queen"

ELIS - is a gothic band from  Liechtenstein which has Simone Christinat as its current vocalist but was previously led by Sabine Dunser who died last July 8, 2006 due to cerebral hemorrhage at the age  of 29 (may you rest in Peace Sabine).

Sirenia - is a band from Norway that incorporates their song with death metal and symphony. Various female singers became members of this band namely; Ailyn (current lead), Henriette Bordvik, Monika Pedersen,.

 These are just few of the bands that really proved their role on Europe's Gothic Rock scene. So many other great bands out there were not included on the list above such as Delain & Leave's Eyes.  Personally, I noticed that this genre should really be tagged as an artistic creation because of its uniqueness. I would say, let's read "Interview with the Vampire" while listening to this music. :)