Jonny Numb

2025 marks the 10th anniversary of my first trip to Germany.

In 2015, I visited Koln (or “Cologne”) with some friends for the Amphi Festival, a gathering of electronic/Industrial/Goth acts, but mostly a grand summit for those who like to don their most eye-catching black outfits whilst listening to two dozen bands that sound like either VNV Nation or Combichrist (but mostly VNV Nation).

I keed, I keed.

We also spent a bit of time in Frankfurt and Heidelberg. Beautiful places, but I grew homesick before the end of my stay, missing my cats and the familiarity and predictability of daily life back in the States.

Another thing that makes summertime particularly taxing in Germany: ice for your drink is as rare a commodity as water in Mad Max: Fury Road; and water without carbonation is as rare a commodity as regular water in…well, you get the idea.

My buddy Lizard has returned to Germany many times since our initial Amphi soujourn, often as an attendee of Leipzig’s long-running Wave Gotik Treffen festival, a 4-day event that takes over countless venues citywide.

Not sure which one of us proposed 2025 as the year of my return to Germany, but the prophecy is speeding toward fulfillment, as we are scheduled to leave the States on June 3 for a two-week vacation.

While I have a rough idea of what to expect in terms of how the days will go (probable late nights and lots of sleeping in), I have dedicated most of my time to researching the confirmed acts (158 as of May 25), many of whom are unfamiliar to me.

Lizard, who has become something of a scheduling expert for festivals, commits to the bit in full: creating a color-coded spreadsheet that lists the bands, his ratings for each (on a 1-5 scale), and the venues/times they’ll be playing. His goal? To best determine the places where we can spend blocks of time to get the biggest offering of bands we wish to see.

This year, he’s attempting to condense both of our lists into something workable, and considering how different our musical tastes can be at times, I don’t envy his position right now.

That being said – if this is the last thing I post between now and my arrival back in the States, that’s why. [Editor’s Note – his long-delayed review of I Saw the TV Glow will be published on June 4 @ 9am; check it out!]

In the meantime, if you’re interested in tasting a sample of some of the previously-unfamiliar acts that piqued my interest for WGT 2025, I’ve included them below. You may not enjoy them, but they may provide an unwelcome peek into my musical sensibilities and neuroses, so…win-win!

Absurd Minds – [Notes: Dancey!]

Alvader – [Notes: Metal crowd?]

Ann My Guard – [Notes: Ethereal female vox; interesting mix of electronics/classical instrumentation]

Ashram – [Notes: Elegant classical instrumentation; nice change of pace; evokes memories & emotions; gave me chills]

Aux Animaux – [Notes: Female vox; Boy Harsher vibes; friends of Corlyx!]

Basszilla – [Notes: Old-school; stompy; Godzilla sample!]

Chainreactor – [Notes: Beats + speed + samples]

Container 90 – [Notes: Fast, old-school production]

Crooked Mouth – [Notes: Droning instrumentation; female vox]

Diavol Strain – [Notes: Ominous, downbeat guitars/programming; female vox]

Faetooth – [Notes: Metal with female vox!]

Fangs on Fur – [Notes: Punkish Goth with female vox]

Incirrina – [Notes: Fast, dark beats; female vox]

Kalandra – [Notes: Minimalist Ren Faire music; good lyrics; female vox = chills]

Midas Fall – [Notes: Post-punk with understated electronics and female vox]

Night in Athens – [Notes: Androgynous frontperson; hypnotic beats; melancholic; MOAA-esque]

Patriarchy – [Notes: Old Ministry/Thrill Kill Kult synthy dance with female vox]

Protokoll 19 – [Notes: Stompy dance; Suicide Commando/Psyclon Nine vibes]

Resplandor – [Notes: Emotional, dreamy, instrumental, Beach House vibes]

Rue Oberkampf – [Notes: Catchy; female vox]

Selofan – [Notes: Lebanon Hanover vibes; female vox]

Skemer – [Notes: Nuxx Vomica vs. Grausame Tochter!]

SKYND – [Notes: NSFW! Evil Danny Blu; catchy & scary; male or female? Backward-masked vox]

Totentanz Strumpfsockig – [Notes: Female vox, Medieval vibe, minimalist instruments (harp/guitar), then dancey bagpipes!]

Veljanov – [Notes: Old-school programming; guitar; upbeat; clean male vox; emo lyrics]

Vermaledeyt – [Notes: Medieval pop-punk??? “Woah-oah” chorus; very cheesy but catchy]

Whispers in the Shadow – [Notes: Old-school Cleopatra Goth instrumentation; good clean male vox]

Xandria – [Notes: Orchestral Nordic metal with female vox; Dethklok-y guitars! Cheesy fun]

XotX – [Notes: Pummeling, pervasive beat; hi-pitch frequency; sporadic male vox (in German); noisy; dancey]

[Footnote #1: Shout-out to this Spotify playlist that curated some excellent representative tracks for the WGT lineup.]

[Footnote #2: You may notice a lot of my notes make special mention of “female vox” – this is because there are a glut of male-fronted Industrial/Goth acts, past and present, that are bland in the way they imitate popular vocal, lyrical , and musical motifs within the scene (example: I dismissed more than one WGT act as [a] “Sisters of Mercy clone”). As far as I’m concerned, it’s the ladies of the scene that are coming up with subversive and exciting takes on homogenous material. So there.]

And with that, I bid you adieu…