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FAREWELL
(Metropolis)
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Clan of Xymox remain one of the best of the practicing British goth groups to have come out of the ’80s and survived the ’90s. Farewell basks in the expected dark and luscious instrumentation of the genre. Gloomy anticipation, guttural but boyish vocals, and classic techno rhythms set the tone on all 10 tracks. But what distinguishes Clan of Xymox from so many other goth outfits is that they always seem to get the formula just right. Invented (or perfected, if that’s the right verb to apply to a genre as thematically indulgent as goth) by Sisters of Mercy almost two decades ago, the approach that Xymox use on "There’s No Tomorrow," "Cold Damp Day," "One More Time," "Losing My Head," and "Into Extremes" is spooky and sensuous, rhetorical and comic, rhythmically passionate and lyrically passionless. It’s a sound in which every attribute cancels out another, leaving nothing but a sense of emptiness.
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