Kiss me from beyond the grave
Oakland’s Sympathy Flowers, formed in 2023 from members of Bay Area anarcho post-punk groups such as ADRENOCHROME and ÖTZI, is on a mission stitched from unrest and unruly desire. Their debut full-length, a 12” 45 rpm LP Dreams of Lurking Fear, arriving in September 2025 on Cellofame Records, is a furious bouquet of punk resistance wired with anarcho urgency, darkened by death rock textures, and sharpened into restless, jagged rhythms.
The band lace their intensity with a crooked grin, indulging in Garfield ephemera and horror/sci-fi kitsch. Their theatrics heighten rather than soften the political charge, wielding absurdity as another weapon against control. Amid dread, they inject humor; amid heaviness, a gleeful kick. The result collides with the force of early Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, and Dead Kennedys. Sympathy Flowers writes songs for collective motion…sweaty rooms where resistance finds its pulse under flashing lights and battered speakers.
At the core, Gina Marie’s icy voice is a call to arms: unyielding, clear, and brimming with conviction. Adam’s guitar slashes through the mix in serrated bursts, while Tash’s basslines churn like subterranean engines. Dusty propels it all forward with militant precision, his drums both unrelenting and danceable, proving that revolution can move to rhythm as much as rage.
“Veil” drapes love in a mourning shroud— a devotion bound to loss, yet undimmed by death. It lingers where fading breath meets aching memory, tracing pain shared and solitary wandering. Across the veil that parts the living from the dead, desire endures, clinging even as everything else dissolves.
Musically, the track channels the tenebrous deathrock energy of TSOL and Rubella Ballet while reaching toward the spectral pull of gothic rock luminaries Skeletal Family. Urgency builds without collapse; riffs coil and strike, percussion hammers with intent, and the low-end growl presses against the chest like a physical force.
Listen to Veil below and pre-order the Dreams of Lurking Fear LP here.
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