Black Rose Moves - Summer of Sorrow

Grant Leon and Mark Neat are the two individuals who compose Black Rose Moves, a brand-new gothic and post-punk band taking influence from the likes of The Cult, Sisters of Mercy, New Order, Interpol, She Wants Revenge, and so many other bands that you’ve heard the name of a thousand times in the past. Like most bands in the darkened scene they seek the beauty in darkness, offering up little dance numbers that sway and move with melancholy while swearing that they are unique in their own right. And, look, while they’re definitely good at what they do, I wouldn’t say they’re exactly doing anything different from what I’ve heard others doing on their debut single ‘Summer of Sorrow’. 

You want a deep bass guitar? They got it. You want some higher pitched strings? They got those that’ll creep and crawl up your arm. Light drum pads to fill in that need for a goth ball? Yeah, those are there too. Deep vocals? Yes, they’re there, but at least Black Rose Moves is avoiding the current trend of mumbling to themselves and making their lyrics coherent. I’ll also state that the chorus is where the band shines as the lead singer does have a pretty impressive set of pipes. I could see the Count himself bellowing out in similar fashion during a party at his delectable castle. The mixing and mastering is also pretty well done, so no complaints there. 

‘Summer of Sorrow’ is a decent song, and a decent attempt at infiltrating the goth market, and it’s doing a decent job from what I’ve seen so far. At least that’s what YouTube is telling me since the video has garnered a little over 11k views at the time of this writing. So, they’re definitely onto something. But it’s not the most unique piece in the world and checks off every tick on what I would call a Safe List of Things To Do To Make Sure Goths Listen To Your Song. Let’s see where they go next and if they can really deliver something different from the rest of the flock. They already have decent production values so that’s a great start.