Several acts used drum machines downplaying the rhythm's backbeat. Reynolds described the vocal style as consisting of 'deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison and Leonard Cohen'.
Gothic rock then gave rise to a broader goth subculture that included clubs, fashion and publications in the 1980s, 1990s, and into the 21st century.Īccording to music journalist Simon Reynolds, standard musical fixtures of gothic rock include 'scything guitar patterns, high-pitched basslines that often usurped the melodic role beats that were either hypnotically dirgelike or tom-tom heavy and 'tribal''. The sensibilities of the genre led the lyrics to represent the evil of the century and the romantic idealization of death and the supernatural imagination. These themes are often approached in a poetic way. Gothic rock stood out due to its darker sound, with minor or bass chords, reverbs, dark arrangements or dramatic and melancholic melodies, having inspirations in gothic literature allied with themes such as sadness, existentialism, nihilism, dark romanticism, tragedy, melancholy and morbidity.
The genre itself was defined as a separate movement from post-punk. The first post-punk bands which shifted towards dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Cure. Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s.
