Vox Populi: New Album From Deadlight Dance

The difference between punk and goth is that as a punk you reject society, as a goth society rejects you. Being society lives mostly online today, that’s probably why my spam filter assumes proposals from exiled middle eastern princes to deposit bitcoin into my bank, and machines to extend one’s manhood are of interest to a regional entertainment blog, but a local goth duo’s new album should be hidden in a spam folder.

Algorithms now pressure me into having to rush this out, despite noting on social media, Deadlight Dance are releasing their third album, Vox Populi tomorrow (Friday 20th March), which they launched at The White Bear in Devizes last Sunday. Have Nick and Tim got in the humph with me?!

They are Eurythmics-covering retro goths after all, who seem to be dealing with the apocalypse with new songs and a spot of gardening. I’ve always been nice about what they do and thought the feeling was mutual! Not at all; seems after a quick Facebook message, the glitch is real, and the email was discovered; and just like the issues Nick and Tim describe, “the populist rhetoric, the age of the oligarch where the rapid development of A.I. and deepfakery is upending reality, and ‘straight-talking’ chancers who claim to represent the majority are stoking the smouldering embers of fascism,” these are the depressing first world problems which need addressing, and with them in mind, isn’t it overdue to rekindle the era of the goth spirit?

Recorded as usual at Mooncalf Studio with legendary purple-bearded producer Nick Beere, it feels at times as if Deadlight Dance are canvassing for compassion as humanity gears up to vote for the collapse of civilised society. “It’s dark,” agrees Nick Fletcher, “but there is hope there. You don’t talk about these things unless you want to do something about it.”

“Light and shade,” says his partner in sound, Tim Emery. “Hopefully there’s something for everyone. For some people, everything will be for them.”

With all edgy synths blazing, Gloss opens Vox Populi, dramatically and attacking the beauty industry, its harmful lies and unrealistic standards in an era most pop stars are encouraging them. We reviewed this as a single last October, where I vowed to shave my eyebrows off and draw them back on with a Sharpie. The exploitative nature of the cosmetics industry, the first deep and eerie original song of eight, which speak of algorithmic existences; gaslighting by the elite, the paradox of ‘humane’ food production, identities and the preconceptions that can shape them, the corporatisation of the military… and gardening.

“There are some important horticultural and botanical references,” says Nick, reassuringly. The poisonous evergreen shrub Daphne odora, being an example, as the second tune, a poignant plodding shoegazer and followed by a surprisingly jocund ballad which gracefully reminds of the playful moments of The Cure.

Red Flags warns of danger, but takes no prisoners, Lachrymal is as dismayed as Fields of the Nephilim, Glass Walls is uptempo, furious and robust by design, an enclosed space frameless and seamless, but perhaps not maximising natural light, for that’s simply not goth!

The Theatre of Absurd thuds us back into the dark, with anticipatory anxiety and New Order beats. Followed by the first of two cover songs, Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams. Deadlight Dance comforts you here with familiarity and reminiscence, but stamp their own authoritative pounce on this, and the second, Prince’s When You Were Mine, both of which feature guest vocalist Sian and drummer Mike Dymond, the latter of whom first played with Nick and Tim when they were sixth formers.

There’s an underlying retro sensation with all that Deadlight Dance produces, that not all electronica was lost to Stock Aitken Waterman, and neither will it be with smug grinned Simon Cowell. And something wholly satisfying that post punk artists of yore inspired Nick and Tim to form a band, and, acne replaced by wrinkles, thirty years later, amidst a global pandemic and a growing whirlwind of social and political chaos, they felt that the time was right to continue the journey. But what is more, is that younger punk bands, like those gravitating towards DIY labels like Sketchbook, are continuing the theme, and, I reckon, would take Deadlight Dance with similar respect to the aforementioned post-punk artists who inspired Nick and Tim. At least they should if or when they hear this album.

While there is always a coherent thought process behind them all, their previous releases, 2024’s acoustic covers album The Wiltshire Gothic, and the literature-themed EP Chapter & Verse of the same year, held a running theme more rigidly. The dystopian or unnerving observations of the modern era subjects behind Vox Populi is subtler, and this feels like the fashion of their debut Beyond Reverence, only with the natural progression, experience and diligence of those three years. And it shows, this is a most excellent album, once again.

Vox Populi is released worldwide to stream, and own as a CD, vinyl LP and download, through Ray Records on Friday 20th March. Check out details on their website HERE.

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