One of the things that I love about the songs of Marc Almond is that so many of his songs celebrate the urban energy. “City of Nights“, “Waifs & Strays“, “Urban Velvet”, “Gutter Hearts” — these four songs especially strike me as celebrating of a unique kind of urban spirituality that’s very transcendent. It even transpires across religion (last I knew, Marc Almond was a member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan), which shows me just how real the urban spirits actually are.

There are very few songs that touch on this kind of energy adequately — and even fewer coming from openly Pagan and Polytheist musicians. There are plenty of songs that are about specific cities, a handful of them are even good, but rare is the song that is both generalised (I could really care fuck all about New York, N.Y.) and so perfect in celebrating the energy of urban life.

If I accomplish nothing else as a musician, I wish to write just one song that celebrates the urban spirits even half as well as Marc Almond’s work.