Visionary Complex is the full-length label debut of Los Angeles
goth scenester
Matt Riser, who together with a revolving cast has been recording and performing under the
Fear Cult moniker since the early '90s. But from note one of the album, it's obvious that
Riser isn't interested in the harder-edged gloom and doom of neo-
goth acts like
Gravity Kills. Rather,
Fear Cult can only be seen as a reaction to
goth's best-known cliches. The album kicks off with the graveyard smash
"Drop Dead." Exhorting the listener to "drop dead on the dancefloor," the song's keening synths and relentless melody suggest
Nitzer Ebb covering
Dead or Alive, rather than any reference to the mid-'90s marriage of
goth to
metal and
punk.
"Drop Dead"'s sleazy, danceable vibe continues with
"People Like Me Die Young" and
"Sex Beat," the latter of which features vocals from one of the two female members recruited by
Riser for this latest incarnation of
Fear Cult. The single
"She Loves Me Not" is dominated by buzz-saw guitar and melodramatic, theatrical lyrics that read like the death poetry of a coffeehouse mope. By the time
Fear Cult gets around to a hissing, wheezing cover of
Men Without Hats'
"Safety Dance" -- complete with a fake British accent -- the idea that
Riser and his mates might be kidding seems more and more palpable. After all, gothic cover versions of sugar
pop songs, hiccupping woe-is-me lyrics, treble-soaked guitars, and
industrial dance underpinnings are such broadly painted cliches of the
goth scene, one begins to wonder whether
Fear Cult didn't get the memo that music evolves. ~ Johnny Loftus
