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The second album from the band formerly known as Beastmilk is one part love letter to 80s goth, one part heartfelt attempt to jump-start it for the 21st century. It’s a ringing success on both fronts.

Frontman Mat ‘Khvost’ McNerney – an ex-pat Brit who has spent the last 15 years embedded deep in Scandinavia’s extreme metal scene – cites depression, the impending apocalypse and ritual magic as inspirations, and he certainly hits all the right reference points: the Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission, Echo And The Bunnymen, The Chameleons.

But this is no backwards-looking crepuscular karaoke. The defiantly modern-sounding Utopian Scream and New Hip Moon swaddle their hearts of darkness in stadium-sized melodies, while Lipstick On Your Tombstone could be the theme tune to some bleak, alternative-universe Twilight where everyone dies in the end and doesn’t come back.

Classic Rock 215: New Albums A-G

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Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.