Ides of Gemini: The Stories Behind Women

With their 2017 release, Women, Ides of Gemini makes quite an impression. The guitars are set to the perfect level to create the right atmosphere, but still contain a satisfying level of heavy crunch that prevents the music from devolving into boring “heavy rock.” The subject matter is compelling too, each song inspired by different women throughout history or from mythology. This type of theme presents a potentially vast harvest for dark and heavy music to explore, with many traditional tropes (e.g. occultism, gore, satan) showing signs of wear and tear.

At the center of the album, of course, is vocalist Sera Timms. Her singing is haunting, memorable and fits the canvas of the band’s music as one of the signature sonic colors. Decibel was curious about some of the women behind Women, and Sera was kind enough to give us some insight.

“Mother Kiev”

There is no actual Mother Kiev aside from a statue I believe, which is a woman holding a sword. A cold Mother, powerful and domineering. I’m always fascinated by the savage feminine and the destroyer aspects of women. I started researching the mythology of Russia and the surrounding territories.

There is a winter death goddess called Marzanna, Moranna, etc. Many names in different territories. She brings the brutal frosts, and when spring arrives they hold ritual processions of burning and drowning her effigy to celebrate her demise, and the birth of spring. I love these cycles of nature, and ceremonial rites of passage. The most common thing we have in our modern western world is marriage, which is another death/rebirth ritual essentially, but I think our culture would be much richer if we could see the marriages in nature, and honor them, and their deaths. Ultimately this song celebrates the cyclical nature of woman.

“The Dancer”

This was named after a dancer who was also a spy. I forget her name at the moment. The lyrics decided to go in a different direction which was more personal in a symbolic way. It’s again about cycles, told through erotic seduction on the death plane. The dance of life and death.

(She may be referring to Mata Hari, the famous Dutch spy who worked for the Germans during the First World War)

“The Last Siren”

This is a song about longing and very much inspired by the tale of Orpheus and the sirens among other siren tales. That’s what sirens are to me. They long to seduce and to devour, and the men who hear their song long to devour sexually. The eternal story of love, lust, and love lost. The ultimate drowning which must occur through the sacrifice of all love which is total, without ego.  The last siren suffers rejection, because she cannot seduce…her charms are barren. Orpheus is married to his holy lyre, and when a person is married to something divine within themselves they become immune to seduction. This feels like a tragedy to the longing sea-bound muse, but alas teaches her to surrender to the TOTAL unified love of the sea of existence, via ego suicide. Ultimately it is about deliverance to infinite harmony rather than the song which is bound and entangled in the idea of possession.