Autosuggestion - Live at Dark Daze EP

By Jon Milton

As I was coming into my teens, my brother introduced me to the Cult and its previous incarnations, Death Cult and Southern Death Cult. Their introduction set me on a path of appreciation of other post punk artists, including those that bordered the goth genre, such as Bauhaus and Skeletal Family. I loved the anger, the energy, the tribal drumming, but outside of my immediate social circle the genre was regularly derided and eventually this wore me down, and led me onto other things.

The emergence of the new wave post-punk artists such as the Murder Capital and Egyptian Blue reminds me of that time of discovery and now there’s no longer the stigma attached, I’ve been happily wallowing in most of what I hear from this genre. I’d not really heard of any bands that reminded me of Bauhaus however until I heard Document’s ‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold’ and none have reminded me of the Southern Death Cult until I heard the debut EP by Autosuggestion. The two bands are of course linked with the latter featuring the baby brother of Alex from Document. You can read our review of Document’s EP and interview with them here.   

Autosuggestion’s ‘Live at Dark Daze’ was released on Friday and unsurprisingly given its title features 6 tracks recorded live at the Dark Daze festival (remember festivals?) in November of last year. Its raw. It’s powerful. There’s lots of tribal drumming. There’s also lots of anger and energy and lots to get excited about. 

You’d think that given the name Autosuggestion that the band would sound more like Joy Division than Bauhaus, Skeletal Family and the Southern Death Cult/Death Cult/The Cult but its those artists that seem to have inspired the band on this work. In many ways tracks like ‘Please' Plead with me’ and ‘Happens’ remind me of the live tracks on the Southern Death Cult’s first album, which was cobbled together after the band split, although there’s more of a nod to Warsaw on Last Nail and Strain to Anomie. As you’d imagine with it being recorded live and for a band at this stage of their developed it lacks a bit of refinement, but it certainly makes up for that in energy.

At the time of writing I’ve only seen the EP on Bandcamp and you can listen to it for yourself via the link here. According to what I’ve seen on their socials they have some studio output in the works, and with some proper production we could have something decent on the way from this lot. Watch this space.    

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