Beyond Wires. Golden Hours

Today we present a little more darkness. Golden Hours obviously was inspired by gothrockers from the 80s, including tie-ins to bands like New Order and The Cult, while adding a lighter sounding guitar that lets light into Beyond Wires regularly. The mix works extremely well. It even leads to songs that are quite danceable, at least at the time that I frequneted dance evenings a long time ago and "the bats", Robert Smith hair, dark clothes, shoegazing, mixed with us dancers with less extreme if not exclusive, dance appetites.

Golden Hours only debuted on this blog late December in the singles section and I realise to know nothing about the band. Beyond Wires is the band's second album, yet we are not focusing on new kids on the block. The members have histories in bands like "Gang of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tricky, The Fuzztones, and more", to quote the bio. That is extremely diverse. From this wide mix comes Golden Hours, a band with many different sides to its goth. Of the members, based in a few European capitals, Hákon Aõalsteinsson, Wim Janssens, Tobias Humble and Rodrigo Fuentealba Palavacino, the first two are responsible for the vocals. Of course, you will be able to hear the difference, but both sing from that starting point of this band: goth.

It is all happening around the voices that make the band far more attractive for a listener wanting to listen to more than just darkness. That may lead to the loss of "bats", but to be honest, I haven't seen many of them since the summer of 1987. Why that was, is a totally different story, but let me suffice to write that it was in that summer our then crown prince, now king, entered Leiden's university and elite student club and how that affected the membership and outlook of all the other student clubs.

Promo photo

Personally, I have always liked the mix in music. Slowly but surely I was leaving behind my 1970s heroes. No, that is wrong. I started to add bands to the roster, but mostly singles. At the time there were very little albums that impressed me as a whole. My body, dancing, was won over first before my brain, listening. I learned to dance, to let go and that was possible with 'A Forest' or 'Pale Shelter' and 'Burning Down The House (live)'.. etc.

Beyond Wires brings elements from that era but that is only part of the story. It is the singing that put me on the goth track. When listening deeper, I started to notice all the other elements. This band allows a lot of light in, through the sound of the guitars, that have a nice reverb to it. Also, there can be a different shade of darkness with New Order synths woven through or underneath the fabric of a song.

When listening to 'Heading For The Moon', I wondered whether I would like a whole album by Golden Hours. That questions has been answered with a wholehearted yes.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order Beyond Wires here:

https://goldenhours1.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-wires