Gothic Dub Gets Its Supergroup: The Vladiators Unleash Debut EP

Some sounds don’t so much fill a room as haunt it — and The Vladiators deal exclusively in that kind of darkness. A revolving musical collective forged at the intersection of dread and groove, The Vladiators traffic in gothic and doom dub: a subterranean genre born from the collision of roots reggae’s echo-drenched rhythmic architecture and post-punk‘s most sinister impulses.

The lineage of gothic dub runs deep and twisted. The roots reggae dub revolution led by Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby, and Scientist laid the sonic foundation — cavernous bass, delay spiraling into the void, rhythm as ritual. That pulse then mutated as it passed through the bloodstream of post-punk, surfacing in the work of Bauhaus — whose monolithic tracks “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and “She’s in Parties” remain benchmarks of gothic atmospherics draped over skeletal dub architecture — and in the bass-heavy paranoia of Public Image Limited and the menacing remix culture of Killing Joke. Decades on, the torch continues to be carried by artists unafraid to let darkness breathe and low-end frequencies rot.

The Vladiators are the latest keepers of that flame, and their lineup is nothing short of formidable. Chopper Franklin is one of the last men standing from the notorious Los Angeles punk rock scene of the late 1970s having played guitar and bass for The Cramps, the Mau Maus, and Nick Curran & the Lowlifes, among others. A producer, multi-instrumentalist, and the driving engine behind Ratchet Blade Records, Franklin lately has made dub a personal obsession — from his 2024 Spaghetti Western Dub No. 1 album, and most recently evidenced by his 2025 single “The Hexed,” a gothic dub remix of his original song, featuring his Heathen Apostles bandmate Mather Louth on co-lead vocals.

Louth herself is a force of nature — a vocalist whose range moves effortlessly from smoke to storm. She and Franklin co-founded the Gothic Americana band the Heathen Apostles in 2013, earning devoted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic and critical acclaim for their relentlessly dark output on Ratchet Blade Records.

Completing the triumvirate is Gav King — guitarist and core live member of Fields of the Nephilim and Conflict, two bands whose cultural weight in the underground is immeasurable. King has been central to Fields of the Nephilim’s live incarnation for nearly two decades, bringing a guitarist’s ear for gothic texture and dark spectacle to everything he touches.

Together, The Vladiators make their recorded debut on a split EP with the Heathen Apostles called “No Peace – Split EP”, out June 5th on Ratchet Blade Records. Consider this the beginning of something very heavy, very slow, and very dark.