“There was no sense of urgency, no real plan to finish this album,” says Chris Goyer, lead singer of I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, a band that’s taken eight years to follow-up Fear Is On Our Side. With titles like “You Are Dead To Me” and “The Sun Burns Out,” Dust picks up exactly where Fear left off, piling dark atmospherics on top of pained, brooding, impenetrable lyrics about whatever happened to be on Goyer’s mind when the tape started rolling. If it sounds heavy, that’s because Ministry’s Paul Barker produced the album, just like the one before. If it occasionally sounds lighter, that’s because the rest of the band members—Daniel Del Favero, Ed Robert, Ernest Salaz and Tim White—haven’t lost their fondness for modular synths, chorus pedals and looping guitar arpeggios. ILYBICD will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our recent feature on them.
Salaz: John McGeoch was a true guitar innovator. His work in the late ’70s and ’80s with Magazine, Visage, Siouxsie And The Banshees and later-era PiL was some of the most brilliant playing of his generation. He was an absolute master of tone, texture and economy of style. He had a way of elevating the song, orchestrating his parts in subtle, genius ways, where it the focus wasn’t on flashy technique like what was happening with a lot of ’80s rock and metal. His use of flange and chorus added depth and space to his parts. This is crucial for a three piece band with a singer. He was just daring for rock guitar, really pushing the envelope. The Siouxsie And The Banshees album Juju was a big influence on our band, especially when we were writing songs for Fear Is On Our Side. Back in 2004, during a lull in band activity, we had the idea to throw a big Halloween party at Emo’s in downtown Austin, where a bunch of friends would cover bands like Tubeway Army and Bauhaus/Love And Rockets. Ed, Tim and I decided to cover Siouxsie songs with our friend Carrie-Anne Murphy, a performer and singer now based in New York. It was a really fun project and broke us out of our creative dry spell. I learned how complex and unusual McGeoch’s chord voicings were. They were refreshingly devoid of the usual rock clichés, and instead had an almost folk/jazz/prog approach. Sadly for us all, he passed away in 2004.
Videos after the jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwIgzdUh0-Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvaHY9L65Xg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHxy8Qd8fk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHxy8Qd8fk0
