Describe my music (dark synth/guit/vox content)

This is an attempt not to jack the "EBM/Future-Pop/Aggro-Tech" thread...

I am in a band now, working on a live fusion of dark gothy/industro synth lines, metal guitar, and experimental sound design. We used to be an "industrial improv jam band" with no lyrics... but that got kind of old. Now we are writing songs.

However people always ask "so what does your music sound like" when there is no opportunity to just play it and let them decide... and I am always at a loss for an appropriate genre or descriptor. So, if any of you folks who have an interest in the broad category of dark/industrial/spooky synth musik care to have a listen to some of our rough mixes, I would really appreciate feedback, especially in terms of how you might describe the music, what micro-sub-genre (ha!) you might lump it into, whether or not it sucks Satanic monkey balls... that sort of thing.

Here is a link to our "current state of affairs" - basically some 2-track mixdowns of where we're at with a handful of original tunes from our practice sessions, nothing polished but it's listenable enough at this stage.

Thanks in advance for checking it out!

[edit: zipfile is for masochists only! See below for individual track downloads]

Veterans of Future Wars - Current State of Affairs July 2006 (~38 MB .zipfile; 9 tracks)

umm, how about one at a time?

Well, I gave them all a whirl. I agree with the person above me though, sending a batch prolly isn't the best idea... it's like giving people voluntary research suveys with 200 questions on them, the more questions, the less people give a crap.

I'd don't know exactly what I'd label it, likely because you have alot of things going on there. Flash In Pan is more of a standard electro-industrial thing, Andy's tune sounds like it's supposed to be goth/ambient ditty, I Will Be There session sounded to me like low tempo techo. Crashed 6 and Al Azif were pretty good hybrids.. I found em alittle groovey. If your goal was to indeed have a live fusion goth/synth/whatever jam band, then you got that, but if you were aiming for any cohesive sound, well.. not so much... at all.

As you know, your mixes are alittle wack. Listenable, yeah, but aspects were definitely distracting.

ehehehee, as an elitest, I've been struggling all post not to say something like, "Kill the effin' guitars!".

imho micro-genre listings tend to really piss me off when i see them on myspace/ band promo sites. i would much rather see something more creative like "music with a beat that will take your f*cking face off!" than "hardstep proto-IDM glitchy drum n bass". i dunno. when i see artists label themselves like that it seems like their music is scientifically crafted to hit a certain target market. just my opinion though.

thanks for the feedback!

I agree about the micro-genre-fication; I'm against it in general. Some record labels seem like they exist to release only variations on the theme of a single song... if you're not already doing *that* song, don't come to them. I asked just in case there turned out to be one that was relevant...

Sorry about the giant link; I already had that file on my server to send to the other band members, so I just linked to it.

re: the guitars... in my solo musix I never use them. I think if they are to stay they will need more processing to fit better with the synth and electro percussion.

and mixes? what mixes? this is what happens when you hit "record" on the master channel and never look back. Anything intended for release will be recorded multitrack and actually *mixed* -- hopefully with better results

So tell ya what, I will post up three tunes as individual links... Crashed, Al Azif, and Flash in the Pan. This is a new/longer mix of Flash in the Pan from last saturday... it is still incomplete but getting closer.

Flash in the Pan (3.5MB)

Crashed (5.5MB)

Al Azif (8MB)

Reminds me of music from Doom or Doom ][. Doomcore.