A couple of Sundays ago, Ann Powers wrote a terrifically pointed analysis of masculinity in contemporary rock for the L.A. Times in a Calendar page headlining: “Nick Cave and the Alpha Male Rockers”. She sites bands like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mark Lanegan/ The Gutter Twins, and DeVotchka as archetypes of a style of Gothic drenched Rock music that openly celebrates masculinity in spite of the genre’s historically emasculated roots. While a well conceived recognition of long standing counter-culture trends, the article fails to recognize the very vibrant subculture of Gothic driven female rockers like Carla Bozulich, Marissa Nadler, and Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers) who thrive on the reappropriation of masculine forms and yet remain wholly unnoticed by the mainstream press.
More often than not these female led rock bands are minimalized by genre tags too specific for their metamorphose, yet consistently heavy music. ‘Noise’, ‘Experimental’, ‘Freak Folk’, and ‘Singer-Songwriter’ are all too commonly pinned to albums by these bands who tread the same sonic and thematic ground as Nick Cave and his L.A. Times brethren. At the forefront of this female underground and an easy non-baritone surrogate for Nick Cave is Carla Bozulich whose latest album with her new band Evangelista does testosterone heavy doom rock better than most boys.
Apocalyptic religious symbolism is soaked in reverberant feedback squalls provided by members of A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You Black Emporer! as Bozulich alternately plays Pentecostal preacher and lascivious carnival barker on “Hello, Voyager.” Primal percussion and subterranean white noise are the poisons of choice, but through the muck and mire, there is the ever-present tribal pump of base rock n’ roll. And when Evangelista rock, they really rock. It’s all punk and Goth and noise – enough to make Nick Cave stagger and swoon. The quiet moments have just as much gravitas: bellowing and iron-laden as they build to the kicking of pricks and gnashing of teeth of the louder tracks. Envangelista could just as easily be called The Bad Seeds or Grinder(wo)man or The Birthday Party.
Heavy Romanticism is the bread and butter of masculine Goth rockers and Evangelista have no trouble testifying to the haunted fate of humanity. In shrieks and wails Bozulich crowns herself ‘the empress, the queen, the king’ and proclaims ‘I like loud things’ and it is impossible to deny her. This isn’t new territory for Carla either. She did it with Ethyl Meatplow in the early Ninety’s and the Geraldine Fibbers soon after they split ways. Like Cave with “Dig, Lazarus, Dig” and his work with Grinderman, Bozulich is hitting her stride now with Evangelista and hopefully more people will begin to mention her work, as well as that of the ranks of female goth rockers grinding it out in the trenches, alongside the men.
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