Red Rose
On the Cusp of Change

Roses seems to be the way to go at the moment, we had a wild rose some days ago and now we have a red rose and that is one standing on the cusp of change, does that sound exciting to you? No? But if I say that they are from Israel and has the drummer from Orphaned Land? Yeah, I thought so and they do have a really good looking and exciting looking album cover that can thrill the one with a vivid imagination. This album on the cusp is the band’s second album since they started the band in 2010, the debut album were released in 2011 so they have been a fairly busy band since they begun considering that this album sees the light of day in february. And if the things mentioned was not enough to excite, danish master producer Tommy Hansen has helped the band with the sound of this album. That my friends is a recipe for success in terms of musical quality.

And the album surely bears the marks of a Hansen work with the very crisp and melodic sound as is a trademark of his, but it also reminds me a fair bit of danish band Royal Hunt with whom as far as I can recall Hansen has had nothing to do. I especially think they keys in tracks like King of the Loyal Crowd resembles Royal Hunt’s signature sound, very catchy, very melodic it is. The singer is not too brilliant I would have to say but as long as he stays away from the very high notes he does well enough to fit this album. The production is excellent and the sound is more melodic than powerful and I would have to say that it is a hard album to place in a single genre labelling as it sort of traverse several of them like melodic metal, hardrock, progressive, AOR, pomp and some more which also makes it a fairly varied album and one that seen to sound alone is rather brilliant.

The songs are eight if you count them and all of them are good, very strong catchy songs and then added to that we have two lovely ballads that add a nice depth to the whole thing. I think that you will be hard pressed to pick out flaws in this album, the vocals is one and the lack of a distinct really catchy hit song may be another but then the latter one is redeemed by the excellent ballads. These are the fifth track Alone in the Night which might be the better one and the excellent end to the album called Seize the Day which also has some thoughtworthy lyrics for those listening to those things.

This all means that for the melodic fanatic it is something to take a close look at because it will most likely appeal a lot, for the general music fan it is probably also a very fine addition to a musical collection and I would say that the only one who might not find this appealing is those who wants it superheavy because then this album is no good. For anyone but the ones who likes long spikes and all that shit, we have a nice album which can almost qualify as a lovely red rose in the flower collection that is your metaphorical record collection so why not just seize the day on february 26 and pick it up? I know I would if I wasn’t already given the album and I also know that I will keep track of this band in the future.

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