Continuing the rush of nightclub anniversary parties hitting Los Angeles over these past few weeks, Killing Spree is celebrating its first birthday tonight. The monthly party has a great buzz in the LA underground and boasts playlists featuring “deathrock, coldwave and industrial.”

Right about now, you might be asking, “What's coldwave?” Use Wikipedia's fairly detailed entry as a starting point. The moody, guitar-driven style was best known in Europe (particularly France and Belgium) during the early 1980s and remains quite obscure in the US as the bulk of the bands involved never released albums nor did they tour the States.

Probably the best known (and, by that, I mean still much more of a cult thing) coldwave outfit to US listeners is Clair Obscur, whose music was embraced by the gothic community in the '80s. The band is still active.

Clair Obscur “Statues”

Clair Obscur “Tremendous”

For a contemporary, US take on this post-punk style, check out New York's Blacklist.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.