When the room spins yet I’m here standing still
Dim the light all too soon
We got the screams and all the doom
There’s a saying, often darkly joked about, that a true friend is the one who helps you bury the bodies. But what if the bodies are yours—your old selves, the ones you must shed to move forward, like husks of memory and desire rattling around in your skull?
Every step we take in life forces us to disinter and dispose of a prior version. This also represents the Newtonian principle that insists movement forward demands a counterbalance of loss. We are all guilty gravediggers, excavating the damp soil of our pasts and laying to rest the skins we’ve long since outgrown. Our intimate relationships are no different: lovers, friends, and collaborators stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the twilight of becoming, shovels in hand.
Crying Vessel’s latest single, “A Taste I Can’t Deny,” slips between lush nostalgia and a bitter pang of regret, hinting at a romance that can never quite be fully resurrected. Taken from the Sepulchers – The Servant side of their upcoming two-disc album, the track serves as a shimmering counterpoint to the project’s darker undercurrents. Here, the band channels a luminous late ‘80s energy: Kraftwerkian synth pulses coruscate around a warm synthpop bedrock, guitars reduced to sparse drones that hum like distant machinery. It’s darkwave at its sleekest—ripe for the dancefloor, and easily one of Crying Vessel’s finest cuts to date. Vocal lines slip between post-punk’s clipped urgency and goth’s smoky allure, carving out a space that’s both retro and daringly new.
The lyrics themselves strike a nervous tension: they evoke nocturnal escapades, urgent longings, and a hunger that can’t quite be sated. Rhythmic and catchy, the vocals offer a slender lifeline between old-school dance-pop euphoria and the sultry gloom of an earlier era’s gothic brood. Lines like “Voices coming from the other side” and “Got a buzz in my body” emerge as talismans of desire and memory, painting scenes that are simultaneously intimate and brimming with open-ended mystery.
The lush video for “A Taste I Can’t Deny,” directed by Jan Müller and starring Austyn Thalmann and Lucius Weiss, sharpens these metaphors into something more chillingly tangible, all under the cinematic eye of Director of Photography Nico Drechsel. It’s the visual equivalent of stumbling upon a secret burial in a secluded clearing, rendered with gorgeously nuanced natural lighting and sumptuous color grading. Think of it as a period piece dislodged from the late ’70s or early ’80s—a pristine celluloid reverie, newly given life. At its core, a couple drives into the verdant woods to dispose of bodies that uncannily resemble themselves.
This curious dance of self-interment echoes the unsettling mirror-worlds of Twin Peaks and the chaotic symmetries of Żuławski’s Possession, where doppelgängers prowl and identities fracture. In Crying Vessel’s new clip for “A Taste I Can’t Deny,” this tension becomes palpable: while the lyrics yearn to rekindle a fleeting thrill, the visuals offer a stark, literal depiction of burial—eerily self-referential and unavoidable. We celebrate the ghosts of what we once cherished, yet must consign them to the soil if we are to move forward. In this way, Crying Vessel’s dance-floor-ready track collides with unsettling imagery, compelling us to recognize that to truly transcend, we must first inter these old avatars—our discarded incarnations—deep beneath the loamy ground.
Watch the video for “A Taste I Can’t Deny” below:
Since 2011, Crying Vessel—spearheaded by Slade Templeton’s evocative vocals, guitar, and synth work, and grounded by Basil Oberli’s stormy drumming—has shone as a vanguard in the gothic and post-punk resurgence. Their sound, bridging the nostalgic ache of ’80s and ’90s aesthetics with a modern edge, marries darkwave, post-punk, gothic undertones, and synth-pop accents into a singular sonic experience. Each new release reveals another chamber in their expansive, immersive world.
With six albums behind them and a seventh two-disc opus looming on the horizon for 2025 via Cold Transmission Music, Crying Vessel has built a discography replete with both original cuts and inventive covers of The Cure and Depeche Mode classics. Their efforts have garnered them a following that transcends mere genre boundaries. Live, they evoke a spellbinding atmosphere that resonates equally with fervent goth devotees and curious newcomers.
Committed to narrative-driven creativity, Crying Vessel weaves together music, visuals, and storytelling to create intricately connected worlds—a trait that made their previous singles “Falling In Love With A Ghost,” “For What It’s Worth,” and “Til Dawn” resonate so richly. Now, with “A Taste I Can’t Deny” heralding the forthcoming Sepulchers – The Servant, the band continues to refine their dark craft, inviting us into yet another crypt of memory, desire, and metamorphosis.
“A Taste I Can’t Deny” is out now via Cold Transmission Music.
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