Twin Tribes by Valeria Rodriguez
It’s been an age since goth music emerged, yet the genre and the culture in all their artful postpunk gloom still resonate. “Goth nights” are everywhere, bands like The Cure still matter, and goth style dare we say remains cool. How did this happen?
“A lot of people identify themselves with a lot of these lyrics,” musician Joel Niño of the darkwave duo Twin Tribes tells PureHoney. “These bands really capture this feeling … [and] whenever you listen to the song, it reminds you of a point in your life where you were at that time. And it really touches you. These songs have already left a huge footprint, and they continue to do that.”
Niño (on bass, keys and backing vocals) and fellow south Texan Luis Navarro (lead vocals and guitar) were both fans of sad-boy ’80s synth-rock auteurs such as Depeche Mode and previously had been bandmates. Combining a shared love of goth with an appreciation for newer darkwave, they began writing what would become their debut 2018 album, “Shadows.”
They used social media to contact like-minded promoters and musicians in other U.S. cities, and over time found welcome in a tight-knit darkwave scene that hasn’t had many artists of Hispanic descent. Performing at this year’s Cruel World Fest alongside post-punk greats Echo & The Bunnymen and Iggy Pop further boosted their profile.
Their latest LP, 2021’s “Altars,” was a collective pandemic-time response to, among other things, the cessation of touring: Remixes from their first two albums, with fellow spirits such as Cult of Alia and Spain’s Luz Futuro adding their own haunting touches.
The opener, a Skeleton Hands remix of “The River,” evokes Bauhaus in its morose lyrics — “Throw the sage in the fire/Blindfolded to desire/Your secret’s safe without the lies,” Navarro sings — with a twist of melancholy dream pop a la Cocteau Twins.
“It was amazing to hear the final thing, just to listen to everything after it’s all done,” Navarro tells PureHoney. “They’re all friends of yours, and they’re all very talented musicians.”
Twin Tribes, Bootblacks and Blood Orchid perform 7pm Wednesday, November 1 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. twin-tribes.com ~ Olivia Feldman
