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Artist
Praise of Folly
12+ albums
Gothic Rockpost-punkGothicgothCathedral 13
about
Praise Of Folly is the gothic post punk band of California based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas McFarlan. Originally led by Thomas in his early college years in the 1990s, he was more recently compelled to take up the torch of Praise Of Folly again, so many years later, after an ongoing personal tragedy led him back to serious songwriting in the late 2010s and he became fascinated by the gothic cinematic works of the modernist filmmaker Maya Deren. Praise Of Folly’s gothic post punk sound has an inventive and eclectic character to it that combines a hypnotic gothic post punk aesthetic with art rock sensibility—leaving common gothic music clichés in the dust. The vocals are performed with a warm baritone tenor that soars and weaves in dynamic resonance with the guitars. The instrumental side of the equation is driven by intricate and captivating guitar and bass passages, but also relies on keyboard synthesis at times for texture and atmosphere, while pounding asymmetrical drum beats meld with the bass, guitars, keys and vocals, bringing all the sounds together in time into undeniably captivating music. B-Side Magazine, one of the largest and most respected alternative rock magazines of the 1990s, described Praise Of Folly this way: “On their album “Disillusioned”, Praise Of Folly hold on to the dark atmosphere without getting overly dramatic or becoming a self parody. Instead the trio fronted by the vocals of Thomas soars even while exploring the depths.
