Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of most "folk-music." I get pretty bored with that genre. It's either too heavy handed, sentimental, too political or just boring to me. That's a VERY broad generalization of the genre. Obviously there is some great folk music that I dig. I tend to like music that involves a band and not just a guitar and a voice. I realize that much of the music I adore is folk inspired. My OWN music is folk inspired, but I always add full instrumentation. Thanks for the comment. I still am no closer to understanding what is and is not goth though :)
One band you might like to check out is the Mountain Goats. Very great writing, very passionate, and they do stuff of all kinds. Some of it's happy and triumphant, other is sad and depressing, and a whole lot of it is angry. He seems to have a lot of metal/punk influence in terms of passion, but is softer in sound and low-fi in terms of instruments. My favorite albums include The Sunset Tree, Transcendental Youth, All Hail West Texas, and Zopilote Machine. Here's a Tiny Desk Concert performance.
I guess I was more trying to say goth is a fashion movement without a defining musicial genera. Kind of like hipsters now. There's a unifying fashion, but in general you can't point to an hipster bands that aren't also better defined by a different musical style like folk or rock or whatever. I'm not sure that really clears it up, but that's always how I've understood it. And then people kind of use it as a pejorative to describe music from that time period they don't like.