Simon Ashberry previews a festival featuring music that has its roots in Bradford.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out again - Goth is back.

And the black eyeliner will be out in force when Bradford hosts a two-day Gothic rock and industrial music festival.

InFest 98 will be staged at Bradford University today and tomorrow.

Top of the bill will be veteran performers Alien Sex Fiend, with The Horatii, Nekromantik and Leeds-based Dust To Dust also taking part.

The event, being run jointly by Black Lobster Promotions and the university's student union, will also feature alternative music DJs and Gothic market stalls.

A student union spokesman said the Gothic movement, steeped in vampire myth, 19th century imagery and tongue-in-cheek Hallowe'en humour, was originally born in the heart of West Yorkshire.

"Bands from Bradford such as Southern Death Cult and New Model Army created a distinctive musical and visual style alongside Leeds-based groups The Mission and the Sisters of Mercy," he said.

Organisers say the current Goth revival owes something to the emergence of industrial music.

"The industrial music scene, so called due to the penchant for its advocates to use heavy machinery and work tools to create bizarre and exciting sounds, features heavily as a sister genre to the Gothic rock music scene yet merges comfortably with today's harder dance and techno acts such as Prodigy, Curve and the more corrosive elements of the Chemical Brothers and Orbital," said the spokesman.

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