The gothic brand of punk-rock ("dark-punk"), that had seen the light in the heydays of the new wave, redefined gothic rock as a deeper and stronger mood than the one originally served by Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper. Gothic rock was, first and foremost, an attitude, and remained such during the 1990s. In the 1990s, that attitude was refined by a generation of musicians that could take advantage of improved studio technology and electronic instruments.

Somewhat surprisingly, the leadership moved from Britain to the United States. Britain's gothic was limited to late purveyors of apocalyptic folk such as Rose McDowall's Sorrow, for example on Under The Yew Possessed (1993), and Micheal Cashmore's Nature And Organisation, for example on Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude (1994).

Germany's gothic school was far more imposing. Aurora (11), formed by Project Pitchfork's members Peter Spilles and Patricia Nigiani, crafted two of the eeriest and most powerful works in the genre: The Land Of Harm And Appletrees (1993), typical of their bleak and majestic overtones, overflowing with memorable melodies and eclectic arrangements (symphonic, acoustic, danceable, dirge-like, and so forth). The apocalyptic lieder of Dimension Gate (1994) covered an even broader territory, evoking both medieval religious music and ancestral tribal music, mimicking at the same time cosmic, techno and new-age music, sounding like a meeting of Popol Vuh and Dead Can Dance in Sven Vath's studio.

Das Ich (1), i.e. vocalist Stefan Ackermann and multi-instrumentalist Bruno Kramm, composed Staub (1994), a symphonic work of heroic proportions.

However, it was Sweden that came to rule European gothic. Roger Karmanik, the mastermind of Brighter Death Now and the founder of the Cold Meat Industry label, was the inspirator of Sweden's gothic scene. Deutsch Nepal's Deflagration Of Hell (1991) was still under the influence of industrial music (the genetic source of this scene), but soon Scandinavia coined an original language: the "sound constructivist" school, that merged elements of ambient, gothic and industrial music, and, in general, relied on atmospheric keyboards and sometimes classical instruments to create terrifying visions of the otherworld; a genre that often sounded closer in spirit to classical music than to rock music. The works of In Slaughter Natives, such as Sacrosancts Bleed (1992), were feasts of excesses, relying on heavy-metal guitar and stormy beat-boxes as well as Gregorian litanies, Wagnerian choirs, martial drumming, etc. Love Is Colder Than Death's Teignmouth (1991) bridged the ancestral and the modern, the middle ages and cybernetics, ecstasy and hedonism, via a sequence that led from monk psalms, funereal tempos and organ drones to disco beats and bombastic arrangements. Mortiis (1), the brainchild of Emperor's bassist Haavard Elefsen, transposed Klaus Schulze's symphonic grandeur and Brian Eno's majestic ambient ecstasy into gothic music, particularly with the two lengthy suites of The Songs Of A Long Forgotten Ghost (1993). Ordo Equilibrio (1), the project of multi-instrumentalist Tomas Pettersson, specialized in the glacial, desolate electronica first pioneered on Reaping The Fallen (1995). Arcana (1) refined the neoclassical, symphonic style on Dark Ages Of Reason (1996).

The master of nordic landscapes was Peter Andersson, known as Raison D'Etre (2), experimented with both the "industrial folk" style of Prospectus I (1993), a set of psalms for string section and percussion instruments, and the "dark ambient" style of Within The Depths Of Silence And Phormations (1995), his most daring collage of samples, drones, monk-like chanting and futuristic electronics; a progression that led to the six neoclassical and mystical suites of In Sadness Silence And Solitude (1998).

Sweden's composer Henrik "Nordvargr" Bjorkk specialized in teerrifying melodrama, first with the band Maschinenzimmer.412, better known as MZ.412, best represented by In Nomine Dei Nostri Satanas Luciferi Excelsi (1995), then with the projects Folkstorm, Toroidh and Hydra Head 9, that explored different sides of psychological violence, and finally with bleak electronic works released under his own name, such as I End Forever (2004), that, ultimately, aimed at concocting the sound of fear. Vitagen (2005), on which he mastered the techniques of musique concrete, applied the same philosophy of terror to post-industrial droning music.

An impressive gothic work also came from Switzerland: The Pleasures Received In Pain (1999), by Der Blutharsch (1).

American gothic

In the United States, gothic rock was anchored around the Projekt label, founded by Black Tape For A Blue Girl's mastermind Sam Rosenthal, which mainly recruited bands in Arizona and California and promoted a similar, "classical-oriented" approach to atmospheric music.

Lycia (22), the brainchild of guitarist and vocalist Michael Van Portfleet, achieved a solemn and profound synthesis of cosmic electronics, synth-pop, psychedelic-rock, and industrial music. Ionia (1991), featuring Dave Galas on keyboards, coined Van Portfleet's favorite setting of ghostly vocals floating in a soundscape of electronically-processed guitar tones and glacial orchestral counterpoints. A heavily-layered instrumental backbone sustained the emotional tension of the formally impeccable A Day In The Stark Corner (1993): on one hand, a lyrical, idyllic, dreamy undercurrent that percolated every fibre of the music; and, at the same time, a haunting and harrowing sense of despair, hinting at inescapable supernatural forces. The monumental The Burning Circle And Then Dust (1995), with Tara Vanflower on vocals, completed the moral Calvary of the previous works: a less catastrophic atmosphere revealed an ocean of somber melancholy, a foreign sense of beauty that underlined a process of self-discovery. This album codified Lycia's message, halfway between a philosophical treatise, a religious prophecy and the last thoughts of a dying man. By now free of the semiotic burden of his two masterpieces, Van Portfleet proceeded to sculpt the abstract ballads of Cold (1996), in a vein that evoked Dead Can Dance and that amounted, de facto, to a repudiation of his gothic roots.

Arizona's contingent also featured: Michael Plaster's Soul Whirling Somewhere (1), whose Soul Whirling Somewhere (1996) was a cosmic and neoclassical update of Dead Can Dance's sound, a fragile polyphony of ethereal madrigals bridging Constance Demby's symphonic new-age music and Harold Budd's celestial ambient music; Lovesliescrusching, whose Xuvetyn (1996) bordered on ambient music; Julianna Towns' Skinner Box, also influenced by Dead Can Dance on The Imaginary Heart (1991).

Remnants of the army that followed Christian Death in Los Angeles included Faith And The Muse and Cradle Of Thorns (1), who penned the barbaric psychodramas of Feed Us (1994), woven around the contrast between the death-metal growl of a male singer and the operatic contralto of his female counterpart, and propelled by a mixture of disco-music, punk-rock and industrial rhythms.

Johnny Indovina's Human Drama (1) rose above the gothic scene of Los Angeles. A mostly-acoustic work, The World Inside (1991), introduced not only fairy-tale atmospheres and neoclassical passages but also the archaic undercurrent that resurfaced on Songs Of Betrayal (1995), a philosophical meditation that achieved anthemic overtones as well as plunged into suicidal dejection. These works were so heavily arranged that each song sounded like a symphonic poem, when it was not as spare and austere as a chamber sonata.

Offshoots of that school were to be found in Chicago, such as Padraic Ogl's Thanatos and such as Thomas-Carlyle Ayres' Arcanta; in New York, such as Rasputina (1), a trio of female cellists who played minor-key waltzes, sounding like the Penguin Cafe` Orchestra fronted by Nico on Thanks For The Ether (1996), and such as Alan Dollgener's Reverb Sleep (1), who only released the electronic collages of a nightmarish, ghastly intensity of Fish Dream (1995) before dying of AIDS; in Georgia, such as Sunday Munich; and in San Francisco, such as Switchblade Symphony, and such as Children Of The Apocalypse (1), who delivered the exoteric Ta 'Wil (1997).

In Australia, Darrin Verhagen's Shinjuku Thief (2) assembled collages of industrial, ambient, jazz and dance elements on Bloody Tourist (1992) and achieved the magniloquent orchestral gothic of The Witch Hammer (1993).