@devinplombier,
I took a listen to Bohren und der Club of Gore - Tief gesunken (Live @ Teatar 78) last night and what impressed me about the music the most, from my point of reference is it sounded (to me) like a German jazz band playing their renditions of the Blues. And at/from my point of reference(s) it didn’t seem to or sound ’dark’ at all, to me.
And the skull? Didn’t bother me at all either, as Funkadelic - Maggot Brain - Westbound Records 1971 had a skull on the back of it’s album cover. Been there done that. Now, if you wanna hear something dark, check out Funkadelic’s - Maggot Brain - Westbound 1971
The album opens with a spoken word monologue by Funkadelic bandleader George Clinton, which refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe".
[7] According to legend, the opening title track was recorded in one take when Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told lead guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had just learned his mother was dead; Clinton instructed him "to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar".[7]
[8] Though several other musicians performed on the track, Clinton de-emphasized them in the final mix so that the focus would be on Hazel.[3] Hazel utilized fuzz and wah effects, inspired by his idol Jimi Hendrix, on the track; Clinton subsequently added delay and other effects during the mixing process, saying: "I Echoplexed it back on itself three or four times. That gave the whole thing an eerie feel, both in the playing and in the sound effects."[7] Critics have described the solo as "lengthy, mind-melting" and "an emotional apocalypse of sound."[9]