Photo: Bandcamp
The term ‘NZ Gothic’ is one that’s been thoroughly rinsed over the last 40 years or so, whether referring to our ‘cinema of unease’, or uniquely moody music. I’ve been guilty of using the term frequently in The Sampler, particularly in relation to Dunedin.
But how else to describe the music of Death and the Maiden? The trio named themselves after a painting by Edvard Munch, who’s most famous for ‘The Scream’, and their songs openly plumb similarly fraught depths.
Their third album, Uneven Ground, aims to evoke the sensation in its title; you always feel like you’re in safe hands, but things are treacherous underfoot.
When I spoke to Death and the Maiden in 2018, they said the band started from a desire to make dance music that wasn’t afraid to be sad. Lucinda King’s voice is the defining feature, but the drum machines are purposefully prominent, and these are all, by and large, songs you can move to.
The way they balance this with ennui, and a faint glimmer of hope, makes for interesting, sometimes unsettling, listening.
They're a band that brings to mind a lot of others - I thought of New Order, Headless Chickens, and The XX while listening - while staying distinct.
Hope Robertson’s guitar alternates between post-punk riffage and abstract noise, knowing when to cede ground to Danny Brady’s drum programming. The way that aspect is treated - distorted, modulated, not trying to emulate real drums but function more as a lead instrument - is a big point of difference, ear-catching on each track.
And Lucinda King anchors the songs with inventive bass playing, often straying up the neck in ways Peter Hook would approve of.
Uneven Ground is moody listening, for sure. King told me in 2018 that she’d never written a happy song, and that still rings true. But it’s sometimes fun - one song features a cameo by Wellington DJ Alphabethead, scratching King’s voice like it’s been pressed to vinyl, and evoking 90s trip-hop in the process - and the tracks are often sneakily moving.
‘Leanest Cut’, which, according to the liner notes expresses the “existential uncertainty at the heart of the album”, contains lines like “there is no permanence”, and while it makes for uneasy listening, there’s a beauty to the slow progression through chords, and the woozy accumulation of melody, which feels strangely comforting.
