Where is your chocolate egg filled with cream now?
While it certainly isn’t any Halloween as far as having goth rock songs written about it, Easter would seem to be in the running for most spooky holiday based on the whole death n’ resurrection angle. In fact, it wasn’t too hard for us to come up with a whole basket full of Jesus-related tracks to make you a mixtape to rock this Easter weekend. Our strict vegulon lifestyle doesn’t allow for any cream filled eggs or milk chocolate bunnies (we’ll probably sip a few chocolate porters though), so consider this here mix our seasonal gift to you. Put on your bonnets, pin on your cotton tails and crank it up: Easter comes but once a year! Download from here, stream from the player below!
So Fragile #24: Easter Bunny Points the Bone at You by I Die: You Die on Mixcloud
Shadow Project, “Static Jesus”
Sure, there are plenty of Christian Death tunes (Rozz or Valor era) which we could’ve opted for, but we thought opting for a tune from Rozz’s uber-gawth project with sometimes-wife, sometimes-collaborator Eva O (who’s had a fascinating history with religious questions and self-examination, having both dated Richard Ramirez and been born again) would pack more theological punch.
Virgin Prunes, “I Am God”
Speaking of artists with conflicted relationships with Christianity, one need look no further than Gavin Friday and The Virgin Prunes. Along with his childhood chums in U2, Friday and the Prunes had a brief but passionate fling with Charismatic Christianity, before the band’s dedication to ur-goth theatricality and gender-bending made them persona non grata. From those days, through this tune, and to his recent (excellent) solo album Catholic, Friday is forever investigating how questions of faith and morality intersect with culture and history.
The Wake, “Nazarene”
We cannot tell a lie: The Wake’s Eldritchery always felt a little dopey, and this “where’s your messiah now” bit doesn’t really do anything to dispel that. Still, some good staticky noise added to the Sisters template.
Ausgang, “(You’ve Got The) Hots For Jesus”
Birmingham’s finest certainly weren’t the first to note the potential for conflation between worship and lust when it comes to adoration of Christ: umpteen 18th century gothic novelists and plenty of medieval saints (likely unconsciously) explored the same territory, but rarely with this much swing and tension.
Rudimentary Peni, “Army Of Jesus”
Hoo-boy. The infamous Nick Blinko would go on to have a whole other encounter with religion when he began experiencing delusions of being a fictional pope, but in Rudimentary Peni’s early, crustier days on Crass’ label it was all about excoriating church hypocrisy, a theme on full display on the absolutely crucial Death Church.
Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, “If Christ Is The Answer, Then What Is The Question?”
We’re not sure if ORE’s early interest in secret heresies and metaphysical investigations (classic neo-folk turf, to be sure) has carried over completely into their latter-era incarnation as decadent libertines, but there are definite callbacks.
Current 93, “The Ballad of the Pale Christ”
There’s certainly no shortage of C93 songs about Hey-Zeus (who could forget “Happy Birthday Pigface Christus”?), but we’re awful partial to this classic example from the band’s definitive neo-folk era. If you haven’t heard Current 93 before, this is kind of the thing most people imagine when they think of David Tibet and company, and is a nice capper for this particular theme. Mighty in sorrow indeed.
