Brighter than the night that’s leaving
We were never there, inseparable, always, didn’t even care
Astari Nite’s new EP, Medications In Bloom, arrives like a lipstick-smeared mirror, and a flyer peeled from a 1991 club wall: part goth romance, part alt-rock fever dream, with one boot still planted in the cemetery and the other lacing up its Docs beside a pile of faded band tees ready for wear and tear in the mosh pit at Lollapalooza. The Miami band’s roots remain black-clad and theatrical, but these six songs lean harder into the cracked guitars, crooked hooks, and beautiful bad decisions of the early ’90s alternative underground.
Formed in 2013 by vocalist Mychael Ghost and drummer Illia Tulloch, with guitarist/producer Howard Melnick and keyboardist/bassist/producer Danny Ae completing the line-up, Astari Nite have always treated alternative rock as a mirror you might kiss, crack, or leave smeared with lipstick and bad decisions. Their history runs from Stereo Waltz on Danse Macabre Records to support slots with Peter Murphy, The Damned, Clan of Xymox, Cold Cave, Peter Hook and The Light, The Psychedelic Furs, She Past Away, and others, which makes sense: they sound like a band raised on mascara, melodrama, and the magnificent bad decisions of the beautiful and doomed.
Medications In Bloom, comes loaded with validation, self-preservation, romance, glamour, and decay, but Astari Nite never turns those themes into some cheap velvet-rope self-help seminar. The record is too strange, too vain, too funny, and too bruised for that. What began as a smaller idea grew into something fuller and stranger, shaped by instinct, revision, and lived experience rather than fussy overthinking. The band revisits older material with a sharper alt-rock bite, lets new songs find their own crooked posture, and follows feeling over formula. Personal upheaval, shifting emotional weather, and a renewed appetite for change all seep into the seams, while the studio brings out hidden colors the band may not have known were there. This is courage in the mirror after the party has gone sour: choosing your rain, painting your mouth, and wearing the wreckage like couture.
Why Are You So Lame opens the EP like a flirtation already sick of itself, all beauty, rejection, magazine lust, and emotional lateness—but now wired with a jittery, industrial-tinged alt-rock tension that recalls pre-Pretty Hate Machine abrasion rubbing against warped pop instinct. Illia Tulloch’s arrangement keeps everything slightly off-balance, as if the song is circling the same unresolved conversation over and over. Ghost sings from inside the rotten ritual of wanting someone who treats care like a delayed train. Desire blushes, then bites its lip, then pretends it meant to bleed. “In Bloom,” blooming right there in the EP’s title, the wit comes off nonchalant but pointed: romantic, irreverent, and ridiculous, wandering wherever the mood decides to take it.
Dry Shampoo X is the breakup in aisle five, heartbreak under cheap fluorescent lights, but at its core is the bruised brightness Astari Nite leaned into while writing: shoegaze jangle in the orbit of Lush and Ride, a flash of Suede-style glam, and a sweetness that keeps curdling at the edges. Built from a fragment Melnick once treated like a jingle, the track drifts into something stranger, shaped by instinct rather than precision, as if it found its final form by accident. The song keeps calling love back into the room after the door has already clicked shut: ridiculous, wounded, and fully aware that bodies remember the people that the mind is trying to evict.
Lennon Yellow Tangerine spins 4AD-tinted post-punk psychedelia into something bouncy, bent, and theatrical, its angular guitar riff giving the song a rubber-legged melody while Ghost threads gothic theatrics through its Day-Glo dark daze. Lyrically, it’s a cracked pop séance of missed calls, slippery devotion, and surreal, voicemail-like fragments stitched together without second-guessing. There’s a looseness here, with lyrics guided more by mood than fixed meaning, as if affection wandered into a room full of funhouse mirrors and forgot why it came in.
Unisex Games, in its revamped form, hits harder: the guitars are thicker, the edges less polite, pushing the song further into that early-’90s alt-rock snarl while keeping its theatrical bite. Friendship curdles into a carnival of jealousy, sex, and petty guilt, its old intimacy now sharpened into ammunition, newly restored from its former “mono” haze into something fuller and more confrontational.
Miss Rain On My Parade arrives with that same renewed weight, its reworked form leaning into a more immediate, guitar-forward punch while still dressed in gothic attitude. It lands as the EP’s black-lipstick credo: keep your sunshine, I’ll keep my storm. The song turns bad moods into wardrobe, validation into poison candy, and gloom into a private weather system worth defending.
Finally, I Lack Nutrition closes with the band’s most overt tether to their post-punk lineage, its skeletal bassline and cold air recalling that older gothic core even as the EP around it stretches outward. Romance collapses into need, memory, and absence—something bodily, depleted, unresolved—aching toward someone already gone, still searching for warmth in the wreckage of attachment.
Astari Nite know glamour is funniest when it hurts, and Medications In Bloom transforms that pain into stained glass. This is one hell of an album.
Listen to Medications In Bloom below and order the EP here.
Astari Nite frontman Mychael Ghost spoke with Post-Punk.com about the world of Medications In Bloom, offering insight into its early-’90s alt-rock leanings and the inspirations blooming beneath its surface.
Medications in Bloom is described as Astari Nite’s latest “fashion of music,” rooted in alternative dark glam rock. What does that phrase mean to you at this point in the band’s evolution, and what kind of world did you want these six songs to open up?
A world full of peace and love comes to mind! As an artist, it can be rather scary releasing music into the universe. In the past I’ve had people say to me, “can you get sad again, your prior music was so dark.” Imagine that. People being so cruel as if they get paid to do so. Medications In Bloom is by far some of my most favorite songs written by Astari Nite. Change is wonderful and it is okay to be happy. Wear the brightest lipstick, laugh the loudest, be brave and find courage to stand up for yourself. Find positivity in negativity. Open the door and say good morning to strangers. That is what I hope for in this fashion of music, that it will inspire and motivate acceptance. Everyone deserves to be loved.
The EP feels like it carries the hope and romance of a mixtape played loud through a cassette deck or stereo, but filtered through something more bruised, adult, and strange. When you think about this era of Astari Nite, what songs would belong on a mixtape that represents it?
For sure, here’s my mixtape. Check it out. …Often, I would play them for inspiration during the time of writing Medications In Bloom.
Tell us about the revamped versions of “Miss Rain On My Parade” and “Unisex Games.” What led you back to these two songs in particular, and what did you want to bring out in them this time around? To my ears, the differences are subtle but meaningful, with a slightly more alt-rock edge.
Originally, Medications In Bloom was meant to be only four songs! Once we listened to how the progress of the EP was coming along, we thought to ourselves, those two other tracks need to be revamped and saved from sounding like they caught mono. I mean, I totally was digging the original versions, however, now that we saved them both, I kind of feel like they love me.
There’s a feeling of early Lollapalooza alt-rock magic running through parts of the EP: that collision of glamour, weirdness, distortion, romance, and outsider confidence. If you had a time machine and could attend one of the festival’s early years, which edition would you choose, and who would you make sure to see?
Oh geez, 1992 was a proper year for Lollapalooza, yea that would be the one I would travel to. Checking out Lush, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Pearl Jam for sure. I would totally be purchasing those band T-Shirts.
Gothic rock has always had roots reaching back into the 1960s: The Doors, Nico, psychedelia, theatrical pop, and then into glam through Bowie and Roxy Music. The late-80s and early-90s alternative era seemed to reconnect with a lot of those origins in a rawer way. Do you feel Astari Nite is consciously reaching back toward the source material of alternative music rather than simply referencing later goth or darkwave formulas?
Happily, I blame the universe for inviting Astari Nite into our 90’s alternative era. It’s just where my band is at in life. Exploring all these new thoughts and feelings is pleasant. Change is a necessity! Can you imagine all of Basquiat’s art being the same, over and over again?
Mychael, I’ve always felt your vocal style taps into a theatrical 60s lineage—the kind of tradition Bowie absorbed through Anthony Newley, and that later found its way into singers like Rozz Williams. How conscious are you of that theatrical history when you sing, and how has your approach to performance changed over the years?
I believe that we never really know what we sound like. We just sort of have a slight clue that resonates to us when thinking about it or maybe that’s just me, tone-deaf and in denial. We all have someone special that we admire. Some people praise the Devil while others pray to Bowie! As a child, often my grandmother would sing songs from The Beatles loudly, perhaps something sparked interest hearing those tunes throughout my home.
There’s a surrealism to the lyrics on the EP, at times evoking Bowie’s cut-up approach, Oblique Strategies, or even The Beatles’ use of the sound and feel of words as part of the melody. But there’s also real narrative poetry here, with lines that feel funny, wounded, glamorous, and bleak all at once. How did you approach lyric writing on this record?
Very nonchalantly! Nothing was second best. What originally was written lyrically, never vanished.
“Why Are You So Lame” has a strange and infectious tension to it: industrial-tinged alt-rock, pre-Pretty Hate Machine rock-driven Wax Trax energy, synth-pop, and psychedelic alternative music all rubbing shoulders. It feels nostalgic without sounding like a direct copy of any one past era. What can you tell us about the writing and production of that track?
Yes, this is one of my favorites, everything about this song is beautiful to me. I’ll have you know that Illia (Co-founding member of Astari Nite) orchestrated the music. Simply magical. As far as lyrically, the song is deeply personal exploring feelings of being let down by friends, people that I love. Conversations that seem to be never-ending and yet, always the same. You know, everything that is just peachy for my mental health.
“Dry Shampoo X” has a bright, bruised pop quality, but the lyrics carry this oddball heartbreak—“Broke apart at the super mart / Sort of strange how you broke my heart.” How did that song come together, and what made it the right track to receive a video?
My guitar player Howard Melnick had a jingle he was working on some time ago! Last year when he introduced it to me, I had a vision as to where it should gravitate towards. During this time, I was big into Pulp and Suede and then we kind of lived happily ever after. As for the video, Danny Ae (keyboardist – bass player) and I were on vacation in North Carolina, messing around with the magical mushrooms, we thought to ourselves, this song rules, lets make a video and so we did. Him and I together, with no care at all. Friends in a mansion, running around fields of grass. Saying hello to animals on a farm! Yep, life is strange and we are here to live it!
Can you tell us about the video for “Dry Shampoo X”? It has a nostalgic early-90s feeling to it, almost like something discovered on late-night cable or a worn-out VHS tape. What visual references or emotional atmosphere were you chasing?
Exactly, all of that is true that you mentioned! I like to think Danny was influenced by horror films while playing director. Sort of a low budget 90’s quality film. For the most part, I think we were chasing rainbows in the sunlight and then into the dark.
“Lennon Yellow Tangerine” is one of the most playful titles on the EP, but the song itself feels slippery and strange: part psychedelic pop séance, part glam nursery rhyme, part romantic shrug. What sparked that song, and how did the imagery begin to form?
So, once again my beloved Danny Ae and Howard made magic musically! The song was originally intended for their side project – Snow Bros. After indulging a little bit more, they realized what they created was an Astari Nite song. A sucker for wild mood swings, I imagined what it would be like to leave someone a proper voicemail.
“I Lack Nutrition” may be the most overtly post-punk and gothic track on the EP, with that Cure-like bassline, icy synth pads, and a lyric that turns heartbreak into something almost bodily: lack, hunger, absence, depletion. Do you think it’s important to keep a darker emotional anchor like this in the Astari Nite vocabulary, even as the sound evolves?
I think as an artist it’s important to act upon what comes naturally! I’ll always have something sappy to write / sing about, it’s just the life I lead.
The title Medications in Bloom is such a strong phrase: beautiful, clinical, funny, and a little doomed. What does it mean to you, and how does it connect to the EP’s recurring ideas of validation, romance, glamour, decay, and self-preservation?
My mother has not been doing well for quite some time. My life for the past four and a half years consists of doctor visits, chatting with nurses, buying her flowers that make me sneeze, my mind wandering about childhood memories while holding her hand. I do my best to stay healthy mentally. Sometimes it can be such a drag doing this alone. Nevertheless, whenever her prescription is re-filled, I’m quickly notified. One day I received that reassuring alert and thought to myself, YAY, “Medications In Bloom” again.
The record was mixed and mastered by Hillary Johnson at Kale Shelter Studios. What did Hillary bring to the final shape of the EP, especially in balancing the band’s darker atmosphere with this more immediate alt-rock and glam-rock energy?
Hillary is a genius! In fact, New York City should have a parade named after her. The love that she poured into the Medications In Bloom EP will never leave my heart. I explained to her how stupid I am though I would like my songs to sound like this and she did just that. Melodies I never knew existed were brought to light. Her creativity levels are fascinating. Her pure honesty is what shaped the EP and colored it wonderfully.
You have several shows coming up, including New York’s Red Party, a return to Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig after previous appearances in 2015 and 2022, Florida dates, Bats Over Indy, and Absolution Fest. What does returning to WGT mean to Astari Nite, and how do you imagine these Medications in Bloom songs changing the energy of the live set overall?
WGT is self-expression! For Astari Nite to be invited to play for a third time makes me feel brighter than a rainbow. Coincidentally, it seems that Astari Nite has always introduced our new era in Leipzig. So, we will play the Täubchenthal on Saturday, the 23rd. Evidently, I am still gloomy, just a little more colourful and outrageous in my poetry.
After Medications in Bloom, where do you feel Astari Nite is headed next? Does this EP feel like a doorway into a larger era, or more like a strange, glittering snapshot of where the band is right now?
Story telling in the form of music videos for a few more songs off Medications In Bloom has my attention. We also begin recording this summer for our future album. In the meantime, I would love to get back to celebrating the life of my puppy Frankenstein. You know, he was my best friend for eleven years. I miss him so much!
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The post “Forgive My Mystique Gaze” — Astari Nite Shares Video for “Dry Shampoo X” and Dives Into the Irreverent Alt-Rock Romance of “Medications In Bloom” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
