The fog thickens. A coffin lid creaks. It’s midnight. Or 7h06 (that makes 6h66). Every day is Halloween, and Halloween only falls on Friday the 13th. The fun in funeral. Une Vraie Gothique is FINALLY releasing their debut album. RDV Au Cimetière, 'See you at the Cemetery' then, to immerse ourselves in the gloom of this dark electro/EBM duo. "Cher Satan, donne moi la force d'être une vraie gothique" ('Dear Satan, give me the strength to be a true goth'), as they say in the eponymous track.
Une Vraie Gothique tells the story of Ferdinand, who dreams of becoming a real goth girl (because goth lads are a bit lame), and Ulrika the witch, who’s had a massive crush on Jesus and decides to flee her family’s slightly too puritanical and stifling Satanist views. The premise is enticing and already brimming with teenage angst treated with tenderness: this goth pride isn’t entirely taken serious but certainly not a joke. In any case, the tone is dark, whilst the icy, nocturnal atmosphere of Tellement Hâte d’Être Démoniaque ('Can't wait to be Wicked') holds out all the promises of darkness. Ferdinand and Ulrika exchange lines, French and German intermingling. The electronic beats pulse. An organ laments in the background, grandiloquent. Theatrical whispers. A desire to sway in one’s corset. To quote their words : "un style de malade" ('a style to die for').
We had the chance to see this for ourselves live on several occasions before the album was released: Une Vraie Gothique is irresistible. There’s a flair for composition here – both musically and lyrically – that immediately grabs your attention. It’s a sound that’s conscious of its influences, particularly the dark electro/industrial scene of the 90s and 2000s, yet is also resolutely modern and pop. Later on the album, ‘Chasse aux Sorcières’, ('Witch Hunt') featuring Supershotgun, is a delightful blend of darksynth, EBM, black ritual and testosterone-fuelled rap. Before that, the hard, martial rhythms of ‘Nuée Ardente’—as binary as the Belgians in tank shirts know how to make them so well—the melancholic reveries of ‘Un Monde Noir’ or the irresistible ‘Metz Noire’ will already have won you over.
There are those brilliant punchlines if you have the chance to understand French (the track ‘Une Vraie Gothique’, with its sample from *Hellraiser*, is instantly iconic and will be your anthem of 2026), but also a genuine tenderness, a sense of melancholy that gradually unfolds. Une Vraie Gothique doesn’t lose sight of a certain dark romanticism and melancholy, a visceral sincerity cloaked in quirkiness. Every track, from the super-catchy big hits to the more atmospheric sections, can be seen as a new encounter, a new interaction between the two characters. Their teenage torments are as sincere as the sorrows and anxieties of that particular age can be, and just because we’ve grown up since then doesn’t mean it’s any less authentic. Thus, the title track, which concludes the album, serves as an intimate, unpretentious coming-of-age lament, much like a confession on a teenage blog, both a tribute to the brooding mentors of a generation and a new model for future crows.
What if this intense fascination with darkness were, in the end, just a form of fear of life... well, in that case, thank goodness things get better as we grow up: we realise that life is part of death (and lasts a hell of a lot less time), which makes it more bearable. This attitude—at once touching and swashbuckling, with a disconnect as exhilarating as it is poetic—makes Une Vraie Gothique’s music cathartic in its own way: this strange monster is a one-of-a-kind, mutant, demonic cuddly toy, a companion to help us dare to cross the threshold into darkness and, in turn, become true goths. This project isn’t just cool; it was also necessary.
