Sectarian Bloom New Spring cassette
Second release from the darkwave-meets-post-punk group SECTARIAN BLOOM, out of Oakland, CA. For a trio, they really fill out these songs, creating the ambience of a genre often accompanied by a second guitar and synths. Will’s vocals are clean and stark, like Peter Murphy of BAUHAUS, while Susi (I could only find first names here) sings passionately and hangs onto notes over the glassy guitar riffs. The lyrics are poetry, like some JOY DIVISION coldness found on the opener “Static”: “A new found passion / A new found hate / But now aware of what fate waits / Expired incandescence / Flowing coils losing sheen / Silent detachment waits at every corner / Just static.” Transylvanian claims to have “the darkest waves in the Bay,” and I think that does well to sum up SECTARIAN BLOOM.