Uuhhhhh, this group. I love them so much! I've had an obsession with them for about six or seven years, much to the consternation of my mother. She cannot stand them, and it honestly just makes me like them more, because I fully subscribe to the cliche that if you forbid me to do something, I will do it twice and laugh in your face when you find out.
I've always said, my opinion on bands hinges on two things: if you can scare me or make me squeal in delight, you've got yourself a new fan. And Deathstars does both. They're vaguely Satanic (though not nearly as much as they used to be) and controversial and it just makes me love them even more.
Their first album, Synthetic Generation, was a thing of genius. It was so dark, so scary, that I had it taken away from me at school for "spreading the words of Satan," and I went to public school. It was a mixture of mostly gothic industrial metal with a little bit of glam, and a dash of the early 2000's millenium futuristic look that was so rampant then. Their video for the title track, "Synthetic Generation," still makes me a bit creeped out today. That creepy little baby thing that crawls over that woman's prone body is just bleehhhh! But it worked.
Second album, Termination Bliss, remains my favorite of theirs. It's definitely more metal than the previous, which is always a good thing in my book. The picture above is from this era, which means it's a bit out of date, but look at them! Aren't they just so....uuunnfff here? Okay, they're always sexy, but whatever. This era was all about militaristic looks paired with evil sounds. "Cyanide," is their best video to date, hands down. "Tongues," is basically a crash course in everything that is great about this band. It's blasphemous, and controversial because the lyric "Speak the little girl's name," sounds curiously like, "Speak evil in God's name," and it's sexy in a dark and creepy way.
And here is where Deathstars hit a wall. Their third album, "Night Electric Night," was the first of theirs to be widely available in North America (I found my copy in a freaking FYE in Indiana for crying out loud) and I think the success went to their heads a little. They had ramped up the electronic on this album, but not enough to capture the hardcore industrial fans and too much for their glam and goth fans. It was a bit of a lost sounding album, like they were trying to keep their familiar genius but also trying to sound more accessible. People feared that they had completely sold out and weren't the Goth devil darlings we all knew and loved. Follow up single "Metal," saw them trying desperately to find a sound to stick with by putting the dirty glam into overdrive and fighting to prove they were still the best at what they do. It failed. I haven't seen a Deathstars album in an American store anywhere in the country for about four years.
I'm one of those Deathstars fans that would follow them anywhere, but a lot of fans had abandoned them. When word was released that they had a new album called, "The Perfect Cult," coming out, it wasn't met with much enthusiasm. The public figured we'd have either another "Night Electric Night," or worst case scenario, a mess of electronic and dubstep. It was not. "The Perfect Cult," sounds like a continuation of "Termination Bliss," and should have been the sound they had on their third album. They are definitely back and firing on all cylinders. I'm more in love with them than ever, because they got their egos in check, humbled themselves, and wisely went back to their familiar sound, but modernized it so that it never feels stale or like they're retreading old stuff.
Something about Deathstars just draws you in and you never quite feel safe with them, but you definitely don't want to leave them. And the way lead singer Whiplasher Bernadotte speaks and sings, I call it the "Marilyn Manson," tone, where no matter what he's saying, it sounds like he's inviting you to bed with him, all the while with a sexy, secret smirk, like he knows something you don't. It's dangerous and devastatingly attractive, much like everything about Deathstars.
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