The latest issue of Gothic Beauty is on the racks, choc a block with reviews, interviews and some great articles and photos you'll wanna check out. Their reviewer had some kind things to say about the latest Veil of Thorns album:

Veil of Thorns is an edgy, eclectic blend of electronica and metal. It reminds me of early Bowie in that it pushes the envelope, shakes up the status quo, and demands attention. We're entering a new world of music indeed - one that's refreshingly different. the Cognitive Dissonance title track is ominous, like free-falling into a dark abyss. "Peripatetic" pushes us over the edge of insanity. "A Weirdness Less Expressed" can only be described as enigmatic or avant-garde. The instrumental "Surgically Dream Like" feels like anesthetic wearing off while you're on the operating table - terrifying! (Athena) - Gothic Beauty

VEIL OF THORNS
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
Mythos Media

Although working at another end of the noisy bastard spectrum to History Of Guns, Veil Of Thorns, and other P. Emerson Williams projects, provide the same alternative. Just when you have become used to experiencing your guitar stimulants, your ethereal relaxants, your electronic placebo, along comes Doctor Thorns, like a knight in deliberately ill-fitting armour and bellows ‘No more!’ causing all patients to fall from their beds. Where a lot of old-school Industrialists make deliberately obscure, ugly amateurish trash and new Industrialists churn out whatever club-friendly sounds they hope will land them a big record deal, there are some artists wading sternly through the same muddy waters with more artistic sensibilities. Veil Of Thorns may make threatening music but it is not without gentler asides, and often presents itself in alluring form. This is their most stylish work, but some of the thorns have an extra edge.

It’s really just down to P. Emerson Williams on virtually everything but the live drums of James Curcio, whose alarming novel I am currently reading. That’s the thing – music and other genuine influences, with P. himself a very talented artist, as I am sure many of you realise. It infuses what might be a trudging sound and throws light into murky corners. ‘Peripatetic’ has a dark rhythmical flow below a bright needling guitar and the drums stay furtive, the vocals commendably aghast, the song briskly cantering into action. It is actually hard to follow the vocal narrative but maybe that’s a good thing? ‘A Weirdness Less Expressed’ is great. If ever robots develop their own Thrash genre with a glaring sheen and viciously seedy bass pulses they will point to this song as a formative spark; more keenly urgent vocals and liquid guitar unusually catchy at times.

‘The Enigmatic Rarely Atone’ is slippier, as guitar slides away from the gleaming, undulating core. ‘Fallacy Decides Initiative’ lurches off after the seamless intro into a sighing, tumbling exercise, but ‘Delusions Of Excitement’ has low key, sweeter sounds and a dignified comeliness, deeper slopes and a playful atmospheric element. ‘Surgically Dream Like’ does what it says on the bloodbag, the cello providing a blurred setting, as though orchestral ocean liners were calling to one another, Industrial whale song!

‘Languishing In The Rusting Valley’ is not the worse holiday brochure ever, but a fractious combination of tingling guitar and grating rhythm in a plainly enjoyably melodic cacophony, as pert as the ungainly ever get. ‘Corrode And Engulf’ is deep growliness, like an ambient intestinal voyage. ‘Night Access Hallucination’ is a weird entity, being spindly, addled art-rock, with a touch of the Frank Zapata about it, with ‘Anomalous Breaks’; fun, not fearful. Austere, like monks hungover on mescaline, and then the title track itself sends you home with a cold bowl of sonic porridge.

They’re one of the few creative outlets for these more tangled sounds, and this gets the thumbs up, being a fine record, and one which some people might find easier to get into than earlier works as it’s got elements you’d recognise. Okay, you may develop extra thumbs with prolonged exposure, but what is life without risks?

http://www.veilofthorns.com
http://www.myspace.com/veilofthorns
http://joinmycult.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/choronzon333

Veil of Thorns

Cognitive Dissonance

Mythos Media Posted: Thursday, September 06, 2007

By: Mike Ventarola

Veil of Thorns delves beyond the psyche to carve out a genre niche of retro futurism.

The term cognitive dissonance was first noted during the late '50s as coined by psychologist Leon Festinger. Essentially, Festinger proposed that when people are "confronted with challenging new information, most people seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists." Empowered with this tidbit of information, listeners can come to the table of the latest Veil of Thorns release with a more open mind for the listening experience. To be sure, this is not your father's version of goth, industrial, or any other formulaic underground sound that is currently in vogue.

Having come from a collaboration with a couple of black metal artists, Veil of Thorns went into the studio to combine as many genres as humanly possible to create something that is distinctly their own. The opening track "Peripatetio" combines the wonderful swirls of old school goth guitars reminiscent of Bauhaus and Mephisto Walz, while the vocals are a cross between David Bowie and Gamma from The Blessed Virgin Larry. As the guitar work and vocals pull us in, the background style continues to merge into a realm that pushes the genre envelope, continuing to reinvent itself almost effortlessly. "A Weirdness Less Expressed" expands with the delightful swirling guitar work, but throws in avant-garde, jazz-like, dark rock elements. The Bowie flavor is in full force here that the casual listener might even mistake this track as a lost Bowie track. Just when you think that the CD will be full of retro nods to old-school goth, "The Enigmatic Rarely Atone" kick starts with beat-heavy electronic fuel while veering off into a sonic liquid that refuses to be defined. One could easily call it goth, avant-garde, industrial, drum & bass, dark psychedelia but that would limit the parameters since it is in fact all of that yet something even more nebulous. "Surgically Dream Like" provides an ominous cello that seems to stem from the bowels of some forbidden cavern. This particular instrumental track is dirge-like and mournful while also being avant-garde jazz with an underlying malevolence.

Cognitive Dissonance is a sonic road trip that refuses to be defined into any specific pattern or genre. While it provides some element of a retro feel for the post-punk early goth rock movement, it still manages to reinterpret those long-held paradigms towards a territory that is a contrast and contradiction within itself. The music borders on the brink of familiarity while constantly transposing and collapsing upon itself throughout. This recording may or may not appear in the club setting as it doesn't seem designed for such exposure, but again, therein lies yet another contradiction. For those who enjoyed Bowie's experimental phase or those longing for something new with an early goth rock feel, Cognitive Dissonance will be a welcome addition to your musical library.

ReGen Review

Artist: VEIL OF THORNS
Title: Cafe Flesh
Format: CD
Label: Foamin' Bone Productions

If you put together old school goth rock, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and gothic-electro-industrial and came out with something all its own, you'd have Veil of Thorns. Foamin' Bone Productions' rerelease of the classic indie goth album "Cafe Flesh" is a chance for today's underground listeners to check out some original music. P. Emerson Williams was one of the members of this mood- thick burst of new wave sensitive dark gothic existential angst and he is also to be found behind the goth-industrial flavors of Beyond Flesh and the extremely unique industrial black metal act Choronzon. Well, his (and his fellow artists') creativity is evident here. The staples of Williams' work - eclectic artistry and soulful nihilism - run strongly through Veil of Thorns' gothic musicality. Electronic flavored beats, heavy synthing mixed with edgy guitar weepings and highly new wave influenced vox come together on a goth act that should not be ignored by those who grew up listening to The Cure, Bauhaus and others. Only Veil of Thorns' sound is all its own, mind you.

Review by: Kristofer Upjohn, www.chaindlk.com

"Lust Beyond Flesh/ Utopia" (Foamin' Bone Productions)

Veil of Thorns-LEGEMET og STEMMEN