Love and Regret

With the resurgence of goth-inflected music comes a bit of love and regret. Echoing bands like Bauhaus, Joy Division, and Sisters of Mercy with '00s—style tribal drums, rippling and barren guitar notes, and dead-inside vocals, Love and Regret shows some love for what came before. But should we really go there again? Maybe we should leave it alone? Will we regret it? Nah. (We love us some Interpol, Cult of Youth, and Holograms.) Before you can talk yourself out of swaying to the gorgeous swirling doom on tunes like "Alight" and "New Dawn" (with vocals and plucky bass lines recalling Joy Division's "Insight," not the über-gloomy "New Dawn Fades") or dancing to the snapping hi-hats and urgent snares of "Seminary" and the galloping-straight-to-hell fury of "I Don't Mind," you'll have worked up a thirst for an antidote that'll save you from falling in headfirst. Good luck with that. Just give thanks that groups now choosing this path seem to have studied the genre carefully. They're borrowing from the best of the first wave: bands that were so fresh and unique decades ago that they've stood the test of time.