Browsing Tag

Southern Gothic

Baroque chamber rock, sonic shadows and the deep inheritance of feminine jealousy consume Liya Shapiro’s Another Woman

Posted on 10 April 2026

Baroque chamber rock shadowed by Southern Gothic aesthetics became an affecting conduit for Liya Shapiro’s labyrinthine emotions in her latest single, Another Woman. The London-based singer-songwriter draws from her studies in art history, fashion and anthropology with a rare naturalness, and you can hear those disciplines breathing through the architecture of the track. The arcane sense of nostalgia within her chanteuse-esque vocals, as she glistens emerald with envy, gives the release more than just a temporal sense of resonance, alluding to the jealousy that’s travelled through the ancestry of femininity.

Written from the sting of seeing someone once loved move on, the song confronts the irrational ache of unrequited feeling with striking candour, while letting the emotional contradictions sit there in all their ugliness and vulnerability.

Like a lovechild of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, Shapiro conjures sonic shadows in a way that leaves you under no illusion that they’re an extension of what lingers within. The cinematography of the juxtaposition between quiescent moments of melody and the artful discord of the rancorous chamber rock clashes of instrumentation reaches the definitive epitome of artful beguile.

Following the momentum of earlier releases and a sold-out Troubadour headline show, Shapiro feels fully in command of her strange, wounded, atmospheric world.

Another Woman is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ennis Hawkins – The Art of Being Alone: A Bruising Barfly Confessional Relayed Through the Canderous Twang of Indie Americana Folk 

Posted on 23 February 2026

The first impression when you hear Ennis Hawkins’ debut single, The Art of Being Alone, is WHERE HAS HE BEEN HIDING THAT VOICE?! After a strum of unassuming chords and the steady tick of metronomic percussion, the evocateur shows how he’s yet to find any form of sanctuary in isolation, but he has mastered the art of using vibrato to tear your heartstrings into splinters.

Once that rush of pensively powerful candour sets in, the soaring electric-guitar notes take their bluesy mark, adding a mournfully lush texture to a single that refuses to reduce anything to be comfortably palatable. When he confesses, “at the end of the day I go to the bar and destroy my liver and lungs just for fun”, Hawkins turns what so many glamourise into an existential cry hurled straight into the void of isolation. Through The Art of Being Alone, he may pull pain from lived experience, but he also exposes the wider malaise so many of us feel if we have even a shred of self-awareness.

If this is the first taste, my god, I’m ravenous for what comes next from the DMV region-based singer-songwriter who has spent decades developing his talent and dexterity that now shape his songwriting. After balancing elite-level athletics with a developing creative identity,  he’s found his definitive home with his debut.

The Art of Being Alone is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

starletste_official – Devil’s Dance: A Blues Rock Earworm Turned Serpentine Southern Gothic Aphrodisiac 

Posted on 16 January 2026

starletste_official poured enough gasoline and swagger into Devil’s Dance to raise the temperature of the southern gothic blues scene to something unholy. The deliciously filthy single slinks in like it’s been dredged from a Louisiana swamp, scorched on its way past the altar, and buried alive in a whiskey-soaked ritual. There’s nothing clean about it, and that’s exactly what makes it so magnetic to those who lean towards the darker edges of reality.

The latest release from the rising independent artist, who’s already amassed over 350K monthly listeners, coils itself around staccato blues guitar, foot-stomping percussion, and hand claps that slap like heatwaves. The gravel in his throat grinds against the rhythm section, all while demonic lust rolls off the lyrics like sweat on stained church glass. The friction is addictive. Devil’s Dance doesn’t just reimagine carnal obsession; it rewrites it through serpentine iconography, turning temptation into a twisted aphrodisiac that hits hard, exactly where it should.

While the visuals and viral-ready content across TikTok and YouTube have done their part to build his cult-like following, it’s the sonic bite that earns the real devotion. Through his commitment to authenticity and a refusal to file himself neatly under one genre, starletste_official has found his niche steeped in sin and spectacle. There’s no point trying to resist when he’s already three steps ahead of the curve, lighting fires and exorcising comfort zones with equal measure.

Devil’s Dance is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bitter Seed by J.D. Cook & Snake Blood Remedy sows cinematically deep Southern soul

Posted on 17 September 2025

With a voice that instantly occupies the space under your ribcage, J.D. Cook is the epitome of what a country singer-songwriter should be. In his latest Southern-soaked single, Bitter Seed, he unravels a paradox, delivering a cinematic vignette that feels as if it’s drifting over to you from a creaking front porch at sundown. The symphony of Americana-folk strings intertwines with a rhythm section that swings like a pendulum, pulling you into a trance and leaving you wide open for Cook’s soul-baring storytelling. He paints his scars unapologetically, tracing them over the map of his indiscretions with poetic candour and a pinch of whisky-soaked edge.

There’s a strange magnetism to the way Cook and his bandmates in Snake Blood Remedy conjure such intimacy without ever sanding down the rough edges. It’s country music that bares its teeth and invites you closer, a confessional that comes with its own heavy-lidded invitation to stay a while. The accompanying music video brings the mood to life with a sense of presence so strong it feels as though you’ve been folded into the scene.

Raised in rural south Georgia and hardened by years of shows across Florida, Cook and his band have forged their sound on lived experience. Bitter Seed proves how much weight that carries.

Bitter Seed is now available on all major streaming platforms; for the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jordan Paul Rousseau & Dean Rivers Stirred a Southern Gothic Fever Dream in the Alt-Country Vignette, ‘The Need’

Posted on 5 September 2025

Jordan Paul Rousseau and Dean Rivers let the spectral and the intimate entwine in their latest release, The Need. Resonating like a transmission from a Southern Gothic fever dream, the haunting vignette drifts through its alt-country progressions with razor-sharp confessions, only to bury them in artfully stylised lo-fi guitars. Twangs shimmer through distorted waves of reverb, driving the song with more force than the sparse instrumentation that surrounds it, while Rivers’ vocals ache with a confessional weight that lingers in the chest.

Written for the JUSTCAVALLI Fall/Winter 2025 campaign, the track still transcends its fashion origins. It pulses with a melancholic passion, capturing the restless pull of longing and the hunger for belonging. It is cinematic in scope, yet raw enough to feel whispered directly into your ear, a paradox Rousseau and Rivers balance with uncanny precision.

Rousseau, known for composing award-winning scores across film, television, and fashion, brings his ability to craft immersive sonic worlds into a stripped-down country-rooted form without losing his trademark atmospheric depth. Rivers, with his reputation for penning lyrics that cut deep and linger long after, leans on classic Americana while unspooling new vulnerability through his voice. Together, they summon a ballad that resonates far beyond campaign commissions, offering a timeless meditation on yearning.

The Need is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

JAMMA Summoned Southern Gothic Spirits Through Vintage Jazz Blues in FAREWELL

Posted on 29 August 2025

JAMMA belied her LA residency and poured vintage jazz blues through a southern gothic lens in her debut single, FAREWELL, a track that dismantles nostalgia and rebuilds it in a darker, rawer form. The freeform fluidity of jazz collides with echoes of gospel that haunt through the organs, while raucous jolts of electricity fizz as her old-time chanteuse vocals command the infernal carnival of instrumentals. FAREWELL doesn’t just deliver a farewell, it resurrects the weight of parting, infusing it with a hell-hath-no-fury spirit, as though a vintage blues siren tore herself loose and started preaching on unhallowed ground.

Born Marianna Vitale in Naples in 1999, JAMMA’s musical roots run deep. From her grandparents’ folk and blues records to her early training on classical guitar, music became both inheritance and rebellion. After studying arts business in Milan and moving to Los Angeles to immerse herself in the city’s blues, funk, and jazz scenes, she honed her sound into one that thrives on duality: sensual yet unflinching, romantic yet punk, stylish yet decadent. The passing of her mother ignited a sharper clarity in her creative mission, propelling her towards this first official release. FAREWELL is not simply a curtain call; it is a beginning, marking the start of her three-track EP Presents, which will grapple with the eternal trinity of life, love, and death.

FAREWELL is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nicola Madill Stitched Shadows into Acoustic Flesh with Gothic Folk Reverie in ‘Absentee’

Posted on 19 May 2025
Absentee by Nicola Madill

With guitars that carry epochs of history in their Southern Gothic timbre and arcane harmonies which tear through the space-time continuum into a metaphysical arena of soul, Absentee doesn’t pander to genre pastiche; in the same vein as Low, Nicola Madill allows the arrangements to summon emotive hypnosis into the minds of her audience.

The masterclass in production gives space to every instrumental layer and ethereal whisper; as the arrangement thrums, twangs, shimmers and rhythmically reverberates, Madill tempers the alchemy with poetically introspective luminosity. It is an unforgettable introduction to the singer-songwriter who is so attuned to the decadence of dark gothic glamour that she triumphs in baring the true aura of it in her compositions.

With her MLitt in Creative Writing informing the richly metaphorical lyrics and cinematic scale of the soundscape, Madill stitched a narrative thread through the track that is both seductive and unsettling, coaxing catharsis from spectral corners of folk-rock. The restraint in her vocal performance speaks volumes in intimacy, echoing with the same unsettling grace that earned her debut album Selene, a Record of Note title from BBC Radio Scotland.

With her upcoming LP to be released in full on the midsummer solstice, Absentee serves as a portal into the atmospheric depths of her cultivated dark hymnal sound. Before the full record lands on 24th June 2025, Nicola Madill will carry the spectral torch across the UK and Ireland, supporting Martin Stephenson, including dates at The Cavern Club and London’s 229 Club.

Absentee is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Elysrei’s ‘Is There Really Nothing You Miss?’ Cuts Deep with Cinematic Southern Gothic Resonance

Posted on 25 February 2025

Loss doesn’t simply take—it leaves behind a hollow, a mess of illusions, and a silence louder than the words that were never spoken. In ‘Is There Really Nothing You Miss?’, Elysrei crafts a dark Americana vignette steeped in the pain of devotion turned to dust.

With hauntingly husky vocals, she takes command of the roots-infused instrumentals that stretch between the Southern Gothic and the cinematic grit of a Tarantino western. The atmosphere is so thick it could blunt the sharpest knife, with growling basslines, rattling percussion, and twang-laced motifs that curl through the mix like spectral echoes of something long gone.

Hailing from Singapore, Elysrei has never been one for easy categorisation. Her music draws from pop, R&B, soul, and jazz, yet every note is tethered to a space where authenticity reigns, where emotional resonance trumps convention. ‘Is There Really Nothing You Miss?’ doesn’t play to expectation—it revels in raw sentiment, pulling listeners into a soundscape that aches with longing and bitter revelation.

The track’s Western noir aesthetic gives the heartbreak a cinematic weight, as if the dust has barely settled from the departure of someone who took everything and left nothing but questions in their wake. It’s a song for anyone who’s been left to wrestle with naivety, for those who know the sting of devotion repaid with indifference.

‘Is There Really Nothing You Miss?’ is out now on all major streaming platforms; find your preferred way to listen via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Saint Senara’s ‘Lost Lisa Marie’: Where Sothern Gothic Folk Blues and Ghosts Collide

Posted on 2 February 2025
Saint Senara

Saint Senara’s latest single, Lost Lisa Marie, demonstrates the award-winning singer-songwriter duo’s unrelenting commitment to crafting southern gothic folk with depth and distinction. Since their 2020 inception, their evolution has led to a sound that combines blues rock’s raw intensity, folk’s piercingly poetic imagery, and the atmospheric richness of Americana.

The haunting arrangement in Lost Lisa Marie invites listeners into a vivid sonic panorama. Blues rock guitars, distorted crescendos, and angular riffs collide to create an audibly tactile experience. As the powerhouse chanteuse’s vocals re-emerge over the brash blues-rock climax, her delivery cuts through the chaos with grace, grounding the intensity in rich, emotive clarity.

Far removed from the pitfalls of pastiche, Saint Senara imbue their sound with authenticity and power, allowing Lost Lisa Marie to unfold like a narrative in motion, leaving space for reflection as much as visceral connection.

For fans of blues-soaked Americana and raw poetic intensity, this is a track that will leave your pulse racing out of rhythm and your finger hovering over the replay button. Off the back of their successful headline shows in 2024, Lost Lisa Marie is both a standalone triumph and a stepping stone towards what promises to be an uncompromising future.

Lost Lisa Marie will be available to stream on all platforms from January 31st. Find your preferred way to listen via the band’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Saint Senara are harbingers of chaos in their Southern Gothic Blues Folk vignette,  There’s a Storm Coming

Posted on 23 November 2024

Saint Senara invoked a tempest in their latest single, ‘There’s a Storm Coming’. Following a hauntingly hymnal opening, this slice of American Gothic Folk Blues allows a surge of melody to break through the sonic overcast.

Imagine a soundtrack to a gritty southern drama, where each note and lyric wrestles rhythmically with the heavy, discordance-spilling guitars that pour over bluesy percussion, and you’ll get an idea of what Saint Senara delivered here as a departure from their celebrated debut and the well-received ‘Under My Skin EP’,

Teaming up with the innovative producer Lex Raymond at White Noise Studios in Weston-super-Mare, the band ventured into darker, moodier territories with There’s a Storm Coming, which repurposes whips and chains as percussion and projects spectral vocal lines which oscillate through the mix, underpinned by Andrew Bate’s Gretschy guitar alchemy.

This neo-noir blues release is a declaration of the band’s readiness to take on higher echelons of the music industry. Be a part of their ascent by immersing yourself in the panorama of tempestuous yet melodious chaos.

There’s a Storm Coming was officially released on November 15; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast