The Shroud

Biography

The Shroud came out of Fresno, California, a farming city four hours from the nearest gothic club. In the late 1980s, tired of driving to Los Angeles and San Francisco to find a scene, Lydia Fortner decided to build one at home. The result was The Shroudettes, who played their first show on 27 April 1989 at the Olympic Tavern in Fresno’s Tower District. Around them, a local gothic community took root that remains active today.

By 1991 the project had outgrown its playful beginnings. Fortner wanted something more serious and more mystical, and with guitarist Rodney Walker she reshaped the band around that mood. On Halloween 1991 they played their first show as The Shroud.

Their debut, Drowning Dreams, was recorded at the Underground in Fresno and released on cassette in May 1992, sold through mail order and passed hand to hand. That autumn Propaganda magazine ran a feature on the band, and in April 1993 The Shroud organised the California Gothic Festival, touring the state with The Prophetess, The Empire Hideous and This Ascension.

Three more albums followed: Long Ago and Far Away (1996), A Dark Moon Night (1998) and In the Garden (2001). After many lineup changes, the band settled into its definitive form for the last two records: Fortner on vocals, Walker on guitar, Iyan Reed on bass, Eric Dansby on drums and Hendrik Gröger on keyboards. They shared stages at The Roxy and The Whisky with Switchblade Symphony, The Last Dance and This Ascension, and appeared on numerous tribute and compilation albums of the period.

The Shroud’s sound sits at the ethereal end of American gothic rock, with more guitar bite than most of their dream pop contemporaries. Reviewers reached for Siouxsie Sioux and the Disintegration-era Cure. What listeners wrote to the band about, though, were the lyrics. Fortner has described her writing as a kind of archaeology: digging into what the musicians were playing to find out what the song was about. Pre-Raphaelite painting, medieval romance and a quiet, homespun paganism run through her words.

In 2026 La Sacramental brings Drowning Dreams to vinyl for the first time: a 180 gram pressing in a gatefold sleeve, remastered from the original master tape, with the band’s involvement at every step. The beginning of a sound worth preserving.

Interview

Coming soon: an interview with Lydia Fortner of The Shroud, by Iyan Reed and La Sacramental.