Gothic Silk

Gothic Industrial Madness GOTHIC INDUSTRIAL MADNESS (VARIOUS ARTISTS)
Customer Review: fine music and videos; lame disk
This is a collection of 40 music videos from a great selection of industrial groups — Clock DVA, Chrome, Frontline Assembly, Einsterzende Neubauten, Psychic TV, Pigface, Die Krupps, Test Department, Christian Death, Rosetta Stone, Executive Slacks, etc. Not every video is brilliant but the music is consistently good.

My problem with this dvd is the very lame formatting problems. There are some songs that don’t allow you to advance so you have to fast-foward through them (and they seem to be the longest songs on the disk!) or go back to the main menu. It seems like they had to work at making this so lame! It would also be nice if you could check off the videos you want to hear and then have the disk play just those songs, but that is not a possibility.

This is a great selection of industrial music — you even see three examples of that rarity, blonde goths — but you WILL be frustrated by the disk!
Customer Review: Disappointing
I bought this DVD online. Owning many Cleopatra releases on CD, I knew most of the songs all ready. The music is often great, but this does not imply that the video will be good as well. In fact, most of the videos are quite awful. Many seem home made, like with a handheld camera. This, coupled with little or no direction, adds an amateurish quality to the videos. Most seem chaotic, distracting from the harmony of the music. A good video supports the music. For instance, most editing cuts are done very quickly, sometimes to a split second, often creating a strobe effect that causes a headache just watching. This was most true on Clock DVA’s ‘Hacker’ video. I had to skip it because my poor eyes couldn’t handle it. Furthermore, the music of these bands is powerful enough in itself not to need powerful images. There were many shots of violent or frightening images that, with the music, reminded me of the kind of propoganda films used to brainwash third world torturers. Furthermore, a video by Spahn Ranch (A great band otherwise) was a homemade version of a scene from A Clockwork Orange. It featured forced sex, something I still cannot fathom. All in all, I found very little in this DVD to be of value, save a few rarities such as videos by Die Krupps (the only semi-professional videos I have seen of yet, as I cannot stomach to watch more than a few videos at a time). There was also an interview with a text artist that I found quite interesting, although how or why it belonged on the compilation was beside me. Additionally, even live performances were off the mark in my opinion. The song from Throbbing Gristle was overly long and repetitive. The cut from Foetus was underlit, etc. If you love industrial/goth music as I do, you may find this DVD to profane that love. Recommended only for the most serious collector of industrial/goth. Overall, it was sadly unprofessional, almost as if thrown together at the last minute. I expected greater things from Cleopatra. Just listen to Virgin Voices or the Goth Box CD compilation and you’ll know what I mean.

strobe effect, executive slacks, clock dva, poor eyes, industrial groups, test department, handheld camera, fine music, psychic tv, christian death, industrial music, frightening images, rarity, cleopatra, various artists, music videos, madness, harmony, hacker, headache
strobe effect, executive slacks, clock dva, poor eyes, industrial groups, test department, handheld camera, fine music, psychic tv, christian death, industrial music, frightening images, rarity, cleopatra, various artists, music videos, madness, harmony, hacker, headache