Album Notes

When asked to describe her music, vocalist DM simply says, "Painful, yet not unpleasant. At least for me." A strange answer? Maybe. But somehow an accurate one for a band that refuses to be defined by any normal means.

the missing: has spent several years continually evolving, growing and morphing both members and sound. What officially began as a guitar-oriented goth band (somewhere between The Smiths and early punky Siouxsie) has made its way through an industrial incarnation and an all-out metal band.

Its current metamorphosis, completed in early 2004, finds the missing: with a darker, passionate, gothic/metal sound. Fresh with new members and new energies, the missing:, after putting the finishing touches on a brand new recording, has once again begun to scratch and claw its way to the top of the New York underground scene.

So what is a missing: show like, anyway? Why not ask a missing: fan...

"Powerful, metal-edged guitars often meld with synthesized beats while DM half-sings, half-growls melodies that often sound as if they're being ripped from her throat rather than flowing from it. Each song churns with raucous fury, intensifying until suddenly there is no sound save for a lone, mournful voice crooning and swaying to a melodic, hypnotic beat. The other members return, building a wall of sound whose throbbing actually begins to hurt, not from volume but from sheer intensity and emotion, until it collapses in on itself and leaves the band (and the listener) sweaty and exhausted.

Painful yet not unpleasant?

Yeah, now I get it."