December 2022 - Subterranean Christmas Special

This marks the first ever proper Holiday special for my Subterranean show. I meant to only run this mix for a couple of hours max, accidently did it again and ended up with a 6+ hour mega mix. Oh well, happy accidents. The mix is divided into blocks and sadly isn't timestamped at the publishing of the show. May edit timestamps in the future but sadly I couldn't due to timing. Holiday blocks throughout from goth to industrial, metal including new music and anniversary cues.

We start off with a very goth/post punk Christmas set, mainly classic goth tunes from Alien Sex Fiend's Stuff the Turkey to 90's hits from London After Midnight to more modern songs like the new yearly Cruxshadows holiday themed song they do. This is something I found out in recent years and had no idea they did this since I never really kept up with the band since their 2006 Sophia EP. This was back in the day when Hot Topic used to sell legit goth/industrial music. The following year in 2007 was when the band begun releasing these almost annual holiday songs. The music to download these tracks are free although I highly encourage you to donate no matter how big or small to the band. This year they release the new single Angel Voices.

https://www.cruxshadows.org/christmas/

The second block consists of new goth, darkwave and post punk tracks that I found for the current month and last month since I didn't get to do a November Subterranean mix. Killing Frost was a band that caught my attention some time ago during my dungeon synth listening binges. Yeah dungeon synth music, oddly enough I found them on a dungeon synth label, Weregnome Records. You can grab their latest album on cassette on there and next week at the time of this publishing the label is coming to release a compilation of exclusive and previously unreleased tracks. The Killing Frost track featured on this mix can exclusively be found only on this compilation. Look out for Ritualistic Analog Sacrifice. Ritual Encens is a fairly recent act, very talented musicians as their released their newest album. It's a style of goth that I almost never see within the modern scene. Highly recommended for fans of Dead Can Dance or Cocteau Twins. Speaking of classic goth, you listeners might notice that the legendary Switchblade Symphony is added within the portion. No they aren't back, although I wish they were. In fact they recently reissued their debut album once again on vinyl through Cleopatra Records. The vinyl is limited so grab your copy while you can if you missed the last reissue because who knows when the album will be repressed once again.

Once we move out of the goth/post punk portion of the mix we enter a very very special block. A sort of tribute to an industrial artist that got me into the genre. Tim Skold, it was his birthday recent this month on the 14th born in 1966. The man is a legend. A native to Sweden he started in the band Kingpin and from there moved onto Shotgun Messiah, a glam metal band who emulated the California hair metal scene at the time and later morph into an industrial metal group with their final album in 1993 Violent New Breed. While continuing his musical pursuits throughout the decades he has been in multiple acts from the legendary KMFDM to more infamous artists like Marilyn Manson (who we don't talk about...) to the short lived MDFMK to the now current Not My God who we will hear later within the mix and many more. This is just a short highlight that I wanted to tribute to the man that opened the doors to me within industrial music.

To my surprise there were quite a good amount of industrial holiday themed songs, although I couldnt add all of them or else we would be listening to a never ending Christmas mix. But I jest, this portion includes your standard holiday themed songs industrialized by such lovely artists as Pig, Silence in Machine, Snog and more. One more thing I'd like to add is Alex Reed's parody of Ministry's classic Everyday is Halloween with Everyday is Xmas. He was featured earlier within the Goth holiday portion with a parody of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. Some of you know him as Alexx Reed of goth industrial group ThouShaltNot to his newer act Seeming.

Reaching the more than halfway point of the mega mix is the new industrial portion. New music from Pig who we know has been pumping out new material after new release. Going strong and no signs of stopping. Awesome new Klack covering oddly enough Cher and you know what? It works. New Null Device to Derision Cult who I highly recommend for old school 90's fans of Ministry. As well as new Human Vault who is always a pleasure to listen too. Godflesh just release a live album that goes over their album Pure. Much like the Skold portion of the mix, the new industrial segment mainly covers industrial metal/rock acts. That wasn't on purpose, it's just a good month for industrial metal fan. One act that I do want to go over is Icy Men who are featured within the Sideline Magazine compilation Electronic Resistance - Reconstruction. The compilation is set as "name your price" and features almost 60 artists within the industrial/electronic scene. All proceeds will go to Ukrainian charity so I highly encourage you to donate. No matter how small or big. They are even running a limited set of physical items such as a shirt or medallion bundle if you like swag. Slava Ukraini!

Rolling into the tail end of the mix for you die hard metalheads we head on forward to the dark metal segment. With new music from Sakis Tolis with his new single. New EP from Greek black metal supergroup Thou Art Lord to the return of legendary act Katatonia with their new single. Aside from the new music I do highlight some classic tunes dug up from the crypt with anniversaries touching upon Samael's Blood Ritual 30th anniversary. December 1992 was a great year for metal because who know who else turned 30? Tiamat's Clouds as well as the debut from Katatonia's Dance of December Souls. The band is featured here three times, I had too because on this same month in 1997 was the final release by the band that featured harsh vocals. This is also the 25th anniversary of Sounds of Decay. The last anniversary that I'm featuring on here is The Kovenant debut In Times Before the Light which turns 25 years. The release is under the band's former name Covenant. Interesting to note is the release never got a proper original non-industrialized reissue until 2005 which was released under In Times Before the Light 1995 to differ from the industrialized remix version of the album.

And we last close this mixset with the Metal holiday portion. It's short but sweet with classic music from King Diamond to Type O Negative to the gimmicky group Austrian Death Machine. The only recent/new music featured on here is from Illusion Fades, Polterwytch who I highly recommend if you are into Halloween-esque sounding metal to my favorite current goth metal band Dwell in Doom. Not exactly gothic metal but goth metal. A bit of a hybrid of goth rock and gothic metal. Highly influenced by Tiamat and to some degree Type O Negative. A one man Swedish band that keeping pumping out release after release. Strongly recommend him.

Links to support and/or purchase the artists down bellow and tracklist. Thank you so much for listening to my mega mix and Happy Holidays friends.

Mixcloud Mix set

Tracklist:

Goth Christmas Block

Krampus intro

Ikon - Christmas on Easter Island/Gruss Vom Krampus (from Flowers for the Gathering Remaster/Gruss Vom Krampus)

The Cure - Last dance (from Disintegration)

Alien Sex Fiend - Stuff The Turkey (from Stuff the Turkey)

Alex Reed - Last Christmas Love Tore Us Apart (Last Christmas Love Tore Us Apart)

The Cruxshadows - Angel Voices

Flowers of Romance - Christmas in a Cunthouse (from Dorian Grey)

London After Midnight - The Christmas Song/Sally's Song (from Oddities)