Red Roses For A Blue Lady

Original Members Kyle Borchgardt - Lead Vocals
Brian Sulak - Lead Guitar Vocals
Mark Mitchell - Guitar
Chris Irving -Bass Guitar
Joe Creasman - Drums The Return To Melancholy Review By Ink 19 Only In America Could Such Ideologically And Aesthetically Disparate Genres As Metal-Core Emo-Rock And Death Metal Come Together In A Musical Clash - Let Alone One So Caustic And Cathartic - As They Do On Red Roses For A Blue Lady's Debut Album The Return To Melancholy. To This Writer's Knowledge No Other Bands Are Of Red Roses' Ilk But If They Do Exist The Return To Melancholy Will Soon Become The Gold Standard For The Gainesville Florida Quintet's Contemporaries To Aspire To. The Most Marked Element On The Return To Melancholy Is Its Chaos Which Is Hardly A Pejorative Term In The Slightest. From Song Structures To The Band's Studied Looseness Chaos Permeates The Whole Record Staccato Riffs Raining Down From Every Direction Blood Boiling Over During Nearly Every Second Vocalist Kyle Borchgardt's Pained Growls Barely Steering The Violence In A Semi-Linear Direction The Whole Bludgeon Subtly Belying The Fact That Red Roses Actually Have Tight Chops But Prefer To Let The Intensity Breathe To Its Fullest Extent. This Bludgeon However Is More Than Just A Little Sprinkled With Weeping Mournful Melody And At Times Stunning Breakdowns Replete With Clean Chorused Guitar Sure Red Roses May Go For The Jugular More Often Than Not But There's More On Their Minds Than Mere Anger. Granted Hardcore And Metal Have Been More-Than-Convenient Bedfellows During The Past 15 Years But The Way Guitarists Kenneth Sulak And Mark Mitchell Make Hardcore Riffs Sound So Death Metal And Vice Versa In The End It Just Makes Perfect Sense. Relatingly A Cursory Read Of The Lyrics - All Dealing With Such Teary-Eyed Subjects As Loneliness Broken Relationships Sensitivity And Other Things Quintessentially "emo" - May Convey A Certain Wimpiness At Odds With The Attack-Minded Content But In The General Context Of The Album Again It Just Makes Sense. And At The End Of The Day Shouldn't Great Music Just Make Sense? Adventurous Music For Adventurous Minds The Return To Melancholy Is A Record Which Will Garner "love It" Or "hate It" Reactions And Little In Between But The Album Is That Much Better For It. Let's Just Hope Red Roses Don't Pull The Standard Hardcore Vanishing Act Before They've Even Had The Chance To Spread Their Wings. Original Article Ink 19 read less