OPEN BARS (3)
The Black Heart
🇬🇧London, United Kingdom
The Black Heart is a renowned rock and metal pub in Camden, often described as a "heavy metal hotspot". Nestled in a lamplit, brick-walled back alley near Camden Town Tube Station, it is about a fifteen-minute walk from King's Cross St. Pancras. The interior is decked out in exquisite all-goth attire; its walls painted black and smattered vibrantly with music artwork, fairy lights sparkling in the dimness, unisex bathroom stalls plastered with band stickers and extremely entertaining graffiti. The downstairs bar is a bustling social hub for metalheads and night-creatures from all walks of life, offering craft beers, shots (including the 'Lucky Sod' Irish liqueur), cocktails, and mocktails.
The Devonshire Arms
🇬🇧London, United Kingdom
Affectionately known as "The Dev," it is Camden Town's devoted home to the musical underground and one of London's leading goth and metal venues. Features a mock-Tudor façade and a buzzy and dark interior. It's described as a goth pub with serious attitude and a haven for goths and metalheads. A place where lovers of rock, goth, punk, and metal congregate.
Albatross
🇯🇵Tokyo, Japan
A bridge between the rock scene and the art world, Albatross occupies a narrow three-story structure in Golden Gai rumored to have been a brothel in a past life. The owners lean into this with a decadent "Taisho Roman" aesthetic featuring crystal chandeliers, stag heads, disco balls, and red velvet linings. One of the few Golden Gai bars with a rooftop terrace offering views of the Shinjuku skyline.
CLOSED BARS (8)
Le Phonographique
🇬🇧Leeds, United Kingdom
The Banshee
🇬🇧Manchester, United Kingdom
Planet X
🇬🇧Liverpool, United Kingdom
The Limelight
🇺🇸New York, United States
Crown jewel of Peter Gatien's nightclub empire, housed in the deconsecrated Church of the Holy Communion (built 1844 by architect Richard Upjohn). Gothic Revival architecture—stained glass, soaring arches, stone corridors—created transgressive, otherworldly atmosphere.
Gossips
🇬🇧London, United Kingdom
Gossips (formerly Billys) was a basement club at 69 Dean Street known for its influential goth nights, most famously The Batcave, which opened in July 1982. The Batcave was the "birthplace of the Southern English goth subculture". It featured a dark, cobweb-strewn decor, a coffin-shaped entrance, and played new wave, glam rock, and then increasingly gothic rock. The club operated seven nights a week with different subcultures each night.
The Clarendon Hotel
🇬🇧London, United Kingdom
A large old pub/hotel complex in Hammersmith that became a legendary music venue. The Clarendon's upstairs Ballroom and downstairs Broadway bar were home to pivotal alternative music events from the late 1970s through 1988. Most famous as the host venue for Klub Foot, the epicenter of London's psychobilly scene throughout the 1980s.
Madame Satã
🇧🇷São Paulo, Brazil
Medusa's
🇺🇸Chicago, United States
Wrigleyville all-ages goth/rock club famed for Nine Inch Nails & Ministry sets.