Leftovers (Advice): Don’t Fear the Reaper

Unto Ashes: Don‘t Fear the Reaper

[purchase]

It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when I was not a part of Star Maker Machine. Advice week happened two weeks before my first post, so I never had the chance to share this one.

I had heard of Goth music. The goths were the ones with the dark make-up rings around their eyes, who hung out in poorly lit clubs. They shopped at Hot Topic, wore mostly black, and were obsessively morbid. I always assumed that the music was loud and dirgy, a sort of very slow metal with glam touches. But, one holiday season, my wife found herself in Hot Topic with my niece’s Christmas list. The music playing intrigued her enough to bring home a CD of music from the Projekt label, and this version of Don’t Fear the Reaper was on it. I discovered that there is a softer side to goth music, and that I like it. Here, Reaper is reimagined as a folk ballad, with beautiful vocal harmonies on top of a solo acoustic guitar. Some other instruments come in late in the song, but that’s mostly it. Elsewhere, Unto Ashes brings medieval and Renaissance classical influences into their music, and it’s a fascinating mix.