Requiem In White
The Visible Heaven
The Circle Music
It’s tough to contextualize where the world, let alone dark music in particular, sat a full thirty two years back without falling back on Casey Kasem’s old “the year is 1994” routine. Yet leaping across a gulf of that length is what Requiem In White, now reformed as core duo Lisa Stockton-Wilson and Doc Hammer, have done with The Visible Heaven with all the grace and elan of that golden voice of radio, and (thankfully) a lot more sturm und drang. That each member has spent half a lifetime in music, film, and television in the interim (not to mention the band’s posthumous transformation into the even more ornate and early music focused Mors Syphilitica) makes the ease with which they’ve stepped back into their former guise all the more impressive, and with a clutch of high quality goth rock pieces of a style no younger act could pull off.
For those unfamiliar with Requiem In White’s original work, it doesn’t take long to get drawn into their fury and majesty. Doc’s churning guitar and bass, while availing themselves of plenty of pedals, are recorded with raw clarity; indeed, the question of how much of classic goth rock’s atmospherics could honestly be chalked up to recording limitations is side-stepped by the rich and warm timbres that run through The Visible Heaven. Instead, the elegiac and haunting moods come from the compositions themselves, and most especially from Stockton-Wilson’s vocals, layered and harmonizing with themselves and low-key organ arrangements on the regal “Ursuline Sister”, and simultaneously tumbling into chaos and baroque precision on “Missa Brevis For The Despised King In D Minor”.
This isn’t to say that nothing’s changed since the band’s initial run. Doc’s time heading up Weep, the melancholy new wave outfit who’ve long been a fave of this site, and a life-earned wisdom and ease in Lisa’s vocals combine wonderfully on deep cut “Solus Sum”. Linking fellow velveteers Miranda Sex Garden, Blue Bell Knoll-era Cocteaus, and classic 90s shoegaze, it’s a tune which packs an incredible range of placidity, tension, and resolution into less than four minutes, something which couldn’t have been written in Requiem In White’s initial incarnation nor without the band’s original work serving as a foundation for its reflective tone.
In a time when the term darkwave, a nebulous catchall even at the best of times, is being stretched to effectively include pure dark techno and ethereal wave simultaneously, the unabashed, uncut goth rock Requiem In White roll out on The Visible Heaven in grand, romantic fashion feels refreshingly brisk and direct. It’s a style those of us old enough to have at least caught wisps of the group’s first incarnation will immediately recognize, and which should strike a chord with youngsters hunting through the archives for something which resonates as deeply and dramatically as Requiem In White do here. Recommended.
