lycia

I love this band because Mike Vanportfleet can make an entire album with only 3 unique lines' worth of lyrics.

bleak also had a magnificent album called 'vane'.

the fact that it's taken about six years for this thread to start makes me want to dig a 1000 ft. deep hole and smother myself with pillows until i suffocate slowly (listening to lycia).

I love this band because Mike Vanportfleet can make an entire album with only 3 unique lines' worth of lyrics.

Roffles =)

Yeah, pretty great.

Tara Van Flowers guested on the last Type O Negative record. I'm not sure if that's something for her to be proud of.

the fact that it's taken about six years for this thread to start makes me want to dig a 1000 ft. deep hole and smother myself with pillows until i suffocate slowly (listening to lycia).

Surely I am not the only one who awoke this Christmas morn thinking "Man, I'd love to listen to The Burning Circle and Then Dust."

Tara Van Flowers guested on the last Type O Negative record. I'm not sure if that's something for her to be proud of.

Pete Steele's always been a massive Lycia fan, makes perfect sense to me!

TON do the atmospheric thing well at times

It's not that it doesn't make sense, it's just that the last TON record is such an odd one. What with the 15 minute anti-abortion song and all. I think she's on one of the good tracks, though.

(I love Type O Negative, don't get me wrong, it's just that Peter Steele becoming a born-again Christian [and writing songs about it] baffles me.)

He who fucks gothic nuns eventually joins the Vinnland church.

I imagine Janne Karlsson as looking a lot like Pete Steele.

so Dani Filth is next?

(that was an xpost to Ned)

I have just been informed by Nick that if I like Nazxul and Lycia then I would probably like Cradle of Filth.

Halp?!

OMG Xpost hahahaha.

I also like that Mike Vanportfleet looks like a hippie.

He's certainly an interesting looking chap.

I dig Cradle of Filth, but the biggest stumbling block for most people are the vocals. Awesomely evil Gothic metal instrumentals, but Dani Filth is a bit of an... acquired taste. I really want to hear Lycia now, by the way. You guys make it sound awesome.

so Dani Filth is next?

The Gnome of Darkness is but Pete's Mini-Me.

The Morning Breaks So Cold and Gray = awesome!!!1

Yeah Lycia are brilliant, so layered and gloomy and chilly.

Which album should I start with?

I started with A Day in the Stark Corner, which literally arrived in the mail at UCI's newspaper when I was writing there back in 1993 and introduced me to the band. From there it was just a matter of tracking forward as things were released and backward a couple of steps to see where it started.

"Pray" is such a beautiful song, one of my favourite songs.

I love Goth album names! Did he have to wear a stark dunce hat while sitting in the stark corner?

It really depends -- Ionia and A Day in the Stark Corner are reverbed-out 4-track lofi-ish stuff. It's the sound I prefer, there's more edge to the lushness. The mid-period efforts (The Burning Circle And Then Dust, Cold) from when Galas and Vanflower joined have more crisp-sounding production (and the songs can get samey but I still love them regardless). The later albums are good but I'd recommend starting with Day in the Stark Corner or Burning Circle.

x-post -- Well, not really:

http://img.verycd.com/posts/0608/post-454877-1156219891.gif

kudos

it took me a long time to realize that wasn't some sort of horned mammal on that cover

I should also note that while nearly everything first appeared on Projekt Silber has been steadily rereleasing them -- notably, Burning Circle is now a one disc condensation from the original two disc release, but this was done at the decision of Vanportfleet himself.

waht! Were any of the tracks deleted?

oh, that'd be the "condensation" part, I suppose

i absolutely love lycia, and, i'm also pretty drunk. sorry for any silliness here.

who knew gothy van zandt, pantera beard guy, and bug-eyed lipstick lady could make music this great

lol

Tara Van Flowers guested on the last Type O Negative record. I'm not sure if that's something for her to be proud of.

-- Jeff Treppel, Saturday, August 4, 2007 1:28 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It's not something for her to be proud of, but, it's something I should have some guilty pleasure for what.?

i shouldn't a started this drunk. but, well, ::I CAN FEEL YOU:: swooooooooooooooosh.

it's good to have a sense of humor around these really dark things though, right?

Listening to "Snowdrop" now, jesus christ, what a great song. Tara's finest moment.

xpost haha yeah, you have to with this group. Not really "humor" as in laugh-at, or even funny at all really, but you really have to open your mind to accept all the pretentiousness to appreciate Lycia.

especially stuff like "Snowdrop" which is practically a pastiche with Tara's doe-eyed 4AD fangirl vocals and botched-Wiccan lyrics ("I am seeing Christmas / In the garden with Venus"???). But it's just pulled off so flawlessly.

See the thing is Tara and I chat every so often via ye olde Myspace, she's totally down to earth and funny. (I'm not going to claim any real friendship or anything, but there are a few folks we have in common that I've gotten to know, most especially the very excellent Floating World, who I recommend to y'all.

Tara's comments on Mike's myspace always make me go "awwww."

bleak also had a magnificent album called 'vane'.

YES YES YES I JUST MENTIONED THAT ON THE SHOEGAYS MAETL THREAD. it's really, really good. really dark and heavy, like ionia with a little bit of j.k. broadrick. david galas is on that, i think, he just did a solo album that my wife loved enough to keep permanently in her car so i haven't heard it.

i love the early lycia stuff - wake through burning circle. they lost me a little bit after that (never been a huge fan of tara's vocals). i think my favorite is ionia. but wake is really good if sounding less original and showing a bit more of their influences.

Listening to Vane for the first time. It's really good; this is the direction Lycia should have gone IMO.

absolutely.

http://www.themortonreport.com/entertainment/music/a-personal-and-candid-talk-with-mike-van-portfleet-of-lycia/

...The most extensive interview I've ever seen with them. A new album called Quiet Moments. A vinyl reissue of Cold.

I'm surprised and excited. Even after the recent EP I was worried they might be basically finished, but they sound very positive about where they are. Looking forward to new album!

I hope they gather a bigger following because apparently they are noticing more fans, maybe my hopes for a wider recognition of this type of music might come true. Fingers crossed for new Trance To The Sun albums!

So where do I start with these guys?

https://lycia.bandcamp.com/album/in-flickers

haven't really kept up with their recent material but this new track sounds good!

also here's tara vanflower on a podcast hosted by a dude who calls himself "The Count" http://www.thebelfry.rip/blog/2018/7/5/tara-vanflower-on-90s-goth-cemetery-confessions