REVIEWS

Buy this album from iTunes

The Gothsicles
Sega Lugosi's Dead

WTII Records

Posted: Monday, June 08, 2009
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

In a short time, The Gothsicles have become the goth/industrial scene's answer to the nerdcore scene. Their NESferatu debut featured a vicious and humorous barrage of danceable hard electronica that incorporated elements of all of the popular trends while the lyrics touched on virtually every aspect of geek culture from video games to goth fashion and even type fonts. But as evidenced by the release of their second album, Sega Lugosi's Dead, and especially by the track with the characteristically long title "It Could Definitely at Least be Argued that the Whole Video Game Thing is Getting Kind of Old," The Gothsicles are hardly a one-trick pony. Granted, every song on the album is still irreverent in its punk-like musical attitude and geeky in its lyrical content, and they still incorporate those abrasive 8-bit sound effects that we all know and love. However, the second "INFL8-R" fills the speakers with its slow romp of stomping EBM and noisy backdrops, complete with Brian Grauper's signature shouts taking on a more distorted and menacing tone, one immediately can sense that The Gothsicles are not above infusing a sardonic and slightly morbid attitude into their usually goofy demeanor. The same can be said of the following track, "Second Album Means It's Too Late to Change Your Band Name," blasting out a stomping display of overdriven rave arpeggios and Graupner's self-referencing lyrics. Of course, it wouldn't be The Gothsicles without several guest appearances; Caustic's Matt Fanale (a.k.a. Sega Lugosi, who the band note in the liner notes is not actually dead) is present on several tracks, the most notable of which is "Anal Meat Ft.," which seems to be a rather disjointed collection of random comments made by Fanale that is sure to offend more than a few people, even with the benefit of context. Industrial noise act and recent tour mates Prometheus Burning collaborate on "Baaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllssss," whose only sung (or rather shouted) lyric is quite simply "Baaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllssss!" One need not search for deeper meaning on a song such as this, and it is rather viral in its catchiness. Perhaps the best track on the album is "I Thought the CD Player Was Broken... but It Was Just a Cyanotic Song," as Graupner and Cyanotic's Sean Payne hilariously tease the latter band for its excessive use of Terminator and Robocop samples and glitches, complete with a Captain Planet sample and Payne adding his infamous Arnold Schwarzenegger impression to close the song out. As on NESferatu, Sega Lugosi's Dead ends with a series of remixes from the band's peers in the scene, this time including System Syn, Iszoloscope, Alter der Ruine, and Boole, and while each of these remixes does well to add a new dimension to the original songs, their variations are not particularly dramatic, coming across as simply more material for DJs to incorporate into their set lists. Also like the previous release, the album ends with The Gothsicles offering their rendition of sitcom theme song from the '80s - in this case Perfect Strangers - although the track is conspicuously not listed in the liners. While it might be too late for The Gothsicles to change their name, listening to Sega Lugosi's Dead beckons the question as to why they would wish to do so, especially when this album solidifies their place in underground music. Like their cohorts in Caustic and The Dark Clan, they are not above lambasting the scene of which they are members, adding a much needed jolt of humor and geeky goodness.