Scheitan
Wine For A Tormented Soul
The Circle Music
The path Sweden’s Scheitan took towards releasing one of last year’s catchiest goth rock anthems has been an odd one. Originally a full band in the late 90s straddling the lines between death and black metal, and even the further hybridized death n’ roll subgenre, the name’s been revived by sole original member Pierre Törnkvist, who’s spent the last several years reformulating it as a goth rock band which calls back to that genre’s most stormy and romantic excesses, while also mining a thoroughly pop-driven revisitation of its core elements. New LP Wine For A Tormented Soul, the second such of this incarnation, doubles down on both of those instincts.
The immediate, anthemic hooks and dancefloor thump of Scheitan’s breakout 2025 track, “Heaven Tonight”, remain unchecked here. An incredibly savvy mix of the butt rock groove which much UK goth rock secretly rested on and dead simple melodies being traded between vocals and keys has ensured it’ll be being played in goth clubs for the foreseeable future. Recent work from Panic Priest and Vision Video is suggestive of the spirit, if not the literal sound adopted by Scheitan on the track, while its melodic similarity to Cutting Crew’s platinum selling debut single, “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” still can’t be ignored nearly a full year after its release as a standalone single. 2024’s helpfully titled Songs For The Gothic People may have had precursors to “Heaven Tonight”, but the refinement of the anthemic formula that track represents is clearly something that Törnkvist has cottoned onto and doubled down upon on several of Wine For A Tormented Soul‘s other tracks. Heck, “Love n’ Death” and “Heaven Tonight” have effectively identical harmonic and arrangement structures, right down to the drum fill linking the bridge to the chorus’ reprise.
At the other end of Scheitan’s sound are brooding numbers, perhaps more in line with the album’s lugubrious title, whose morosity stands in stark contrast to the feel-good bounce of the poppier numbers. The waltz of “Every Little Thing” and the nautical lilt of the weary “Carry Me Home” find Törnkvist applying some of the same lessons in transposing metal instrumentation to the grand sweep of goth rock ballads which countrymen Gallows’ Eve have showcased on their first two LPs. Melodically evoking Nick Cave’s “Where The Wild Roses Grow”, the latter builds to find solid footing in its classic rock rhythmic arrangement, giving Törnkvist’s twisting in the wind vocals a point of stability.
The larger evaluative questions about Wine For A Darkened Soul are inevitable, but will likely need to be answered individually by listeners. Do you need more than one track of goth-pop confectionary blending the Sisters and 80s soft rock in your DJ sets? Is a technical updating of the stoic and strident style of 90s gothic rock of relevance to you? Given how heavily Scheitan rest on those two modes on this record it’s hard to imagine this record offering much to anyone who can offer a decisive “no” to both of those questions, but if either prompted an enthusiastic affirmation from you, you’ll likely have a lot of fun with Wine For A Tormented Soul.
