Under the sodium glow of an empty underpass, The Martyr delivers a performance that feels both intimate and unflinching. Their new single, “Lament in Black,” trades artifice for atmosphere—shot DIY-style in a Los Angeles tunnel that hums with post-industrial decay. The setting mirrors the band’s ethos: raw, immediate, and stripped of pretense. It’s punk, but unadorned—black leather silhouettes against flickering light, channeling the ghosts of goth rock’s past through a modern, steel-gray lens.
The track itself bristles with tension, carried by an angular, ascending-and-descending deathrock guitar hook—equal parts Rikk Agnew, Georgie Walker, and the Munsters’ macabre twang. Beneath that, a pulsing bass and beat keep the song in perpetual motion, while the vocals unfurl with a languid goth-punk drawl. The result is a timeless deathrock tune, embalmed and exhumed with style—catchy, danceable, and a proud tribute to the deathrock lineage of Los Angeles, where the genre was born.
Lyrically, “Lament in Black” reads like a confession whispered to the mirror—haunted by insomnia, paranoia, and fractured identity. Each refrain circles back to the same existential spiral: the fear of being watched, the ache of incompleteness, and the desperate humor of laughing through despair. It’s a dance with dread, where every beat feels like a heartbeat trying to outpace the dark.
“Lament in Black is born out of a general disconnect with my emotions and society as a whole,” explains the band. “The world inundates us with pretty heavy stuff on the daily, and it’s easy to feel yourself succumbing to nihilism. ‘It’s all so sad I can’t help but laugh’ is my way of coping with the daily dread. The song is paranoia-ridden—back alley lights flickering, and a beat that makes you want to dance, because what else is there to do?”
That tension—between futility and motion, despair and dance—is the pulse of The Martyr’s sound. The video captures it perfectly: blurred motion, cold light, and the sense that the city itself might swallow you whole. Filmed in one of downtown Los Angeles’ tunnels—possibly the 2nd Street Tunnel immortalized in films like The Terminator—the band sets up beneath its green industrial glow, performing as cars streak by. The greenish palette of the sodium-lit underpass lends an eerie cinematic beauty, amplified by drone shots that frame the group in isolation against the yellow dividing lines. Shot with little more than their cameras, a few amps, and the will to perform, “Lament in Black” channels the DIY punk spirit and still thrives in the Los Angeles underground.
Watch the video for “Lament in Black” below:
Blending industrial rock, gothic rock, post-punk, and darkwave, The Martyr are part of a new Los Angeles underground where style meets sincerity, and noise meets nerve. Their sound nods to The Sisters of Mercy, Christian Death, and Nine Inch Nails—but filtered through the claustrophobic anxiety of the present moment. It’s the music of late nights, echoing streets, and the slow recognition that isolation can still be defiant.
Listen to “Lament in Black” below, or via Spotify, and order the single here.
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