Heavy Rotation: Cemetery Skyline and Insomnium’s Markus Vanhala
With their debut album Nordic Gothic now available wherever you get your music these days, the world now knows what a band featuring incredibly talented musicians from Dark Tranquility, Insomnium, Amorphis, Dimmu Borgir, and Sentenced would sound like. It’s just a great group of musicians, that you’ve sometimes got to wonder where they draw their inspiration.
Luckily, we at MetalSucks were lucky enough to get Cemetery Skyline and Insomnium guitarist Markus Vanhala to shed a little light on that last bit for our ongoing series Heavy Rotation. From Unto Others to Cindy Und Bert, Vanhala and the rest of his band have a damn fine take in music.
You can check out Vanhala’s choices in this, the most recent edition of Heavy Rotation.
Type O Negative – “Wolfmoon”
The Type O’s of them all – best band in the world for me, or at least in the top three. Perfect combination of Black Sabbath and Beatles, infused with a great gothic black humor. Who else can write a song about a man at the height of his lycanthropic cycle having sex with a woman at the height of her menstrual cycle and doing the story with style! For some weird reason, I’ve always said this is the song for my funeral, weird theme for that haha. This also is the only real soundtrack for the autumn!
Drab Majesty – “Ellipsis”
Bit newer goth stuff that I just found lately, and been deep down with this for the whole summer. Soundtrack for summer night drives this year. I do love synth wave and gothic stuff, and this is a perfect blend – Gothwave.
Unto Others – “Butterfly”
I would love to see Cemetery Skyline and Unto Others do great shows together where all darkened souls would dance the night away. The new wave of goth 2020’s. There’s something old and great and something new in Unto Others, love this band and how they connect different styles and pieces. Like goth stuff meets Testament riffs in the past.
Cocteau Twins – “Heaven Or Las Vegas”
Peter Steele might’ve listened to this bunch quite a bit before inventing soundscape for ”October Rust”, anyone? Shoegazing indeed!
Killing Joke – “Euphoria”
Killing Joke always is a band that changes their style successfully and has been adventurous. I liked the 80’s Goth direction a lot, but also this more metallic touch of their last two albums is amazing. This “Euphoria” song is like a softer version of a Fear Factory song, except it’s way better.
Billy Idol – “Bitter Taste”
The old goth punker has been getting older in style. In. In my book, this one is definitely one of the best songs of this new millennium! The idol has a lot more Johnny Cash in his voice and charisma since the 80’s.
Sisters Of Mercy – “More”
Sisters have been again a lot on my vinyl plate lately and did a comeback since the mid 90’s. Cemetery Skyline might have something to do with this resurrection of old playlists. Sisters is the definition of goth, and we definitely listened to this stuff a lot back then and again now when searching the perfect sound for CS. Never seen them live though, so missing out on something. I want more.
Fields Of Nephilim – “Wail Of Sumer/And there Will Your Heart Be Also”
This ending combo on the ‘Elizium’ album is the Pink Floyd moment of goth music – 15 minutes of pure ecstatic trance. This can keep your attention hypnotically with only a few chords repeating and carrying you away for a quarter of an hour easily. Been on my nightly playlist forever and ever.
The Cult – “Give Me Mercy”
Makes me happy that an old favorite of mine made a great comeback album finally with ‘Under The Midnight Sun’. The Cult’s always been about hard rock in a gothic blend and that’s probably what made them a cult band. Always been a bit underestimated in what they do.
Cindy Und Bert – “der Hund von Baskerville”
I heard this on my last tour in Germany last month, and was blown away haha. German efficiency, nobody else could do a version of “Paranoid” in their native language. At least hope so. The video is psychotic, could be an excerpt from an Austin Powers movie or something. Cindy is bit high wired and Bert’s look is highly psychopathic.
