Lips of Kohl - live in Philadelphia (Cover Artwork)
Staff Review

Lips of Kohl

live in Philadelphia (2025)

live show


Lips of Kohl made their debut at an absolutely jammed packed El Bar in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia on January 25, 2025. The new band’s set was a small section of the day long 20th anniversary celebration of the Hell Under the El show, which a lot of drunk punks remember fondly. To that end, by the time LoK took to the stage, El Bar was like a sardine can and most people there were deep in their cups.

LoK includes Ami of the End Ad on vocals and Rachel of the Droogettes on bass, though the band is a significantly different entity than both of those groups. A heavy 80s goth vibe runs through the band, but they have a bit more oomph in their punch than a lot of the modern groups that wear pancake makeup and matrix-style clothes. Rather, as the band made their way through a somewhat abbreviated set, a sort of ruff-n-tumble crunch permeate the approach, which gave the band a sort of death rock menace- though the goth style wail was in full effect.

It was fitting that the band covered a snippet of Samhain’s “Archangel,” both because the brutish muscle of Samhain was carried into LoK and also because “Archangel” was written for Dave Vanian of the Damned, whose own goth era seems to influence LoK.

Their debut song was “Dark Summer” which is the perfect summation for the band- Siouxsie Sioux type vocals on top of lumbering riffage all the while the band revels in goth-imagery as much as they wink at the dressing itself. It was fun but spooky too. I’m interested even though I don't know what a "Kohl" is... unless they mean a place with a good discount clothes rack which I'm pretty sure they don't.