De Rosa
>> Mend
>> Chemikal Underground
Since playing an absolutely brilliant show for the Lick launch night a few months back it has been this writer’s main aim to get a hold of De Rosa’s album – and having received a copy it has become clear that it was worth the wait.
It’s no secret that De Rosa spent a great deal of time on this album. Releasing ‘Camera’ back in 2004 to pacify their steadily growing fan base it has been time very well spent completing their debut ‘Mend’. The album has not only a ferociously good set of songs, it has the spirit of a piece of work that has been cared for and carefully structured. Mend opens with ‘Father’s Eyes’: it is a fantastic song. Simple guitar and bass lines allow the full affect of Matthew Henry’s urgent vocals to drive us along before the noise builds to a climatic end. Next up is one of the best songs in recent memory ‘Camera’. This is the sound of Interpol set to eleven – it’s a scratchy and static-charged monster of a tune. Any band would kill to get hold of a song of this standard, especially when it can be put to such devastating use in the live setting.
Mend is an album of varying moods and textures. For every blistering modern rock rough diamond there is an opening for a soothing yet skewed quiet number. ‘New Lanark’ and ‘Hopes & Little Jokes’ give the album the perfect calm-before-the-storm that the natural world demands.
The overall feeling when listening to this tightly packed 35 minute wonder is one of triumph. De Rosa has been able to live up to the hype of playing Manchester’s In the City (as well as justifying their support of rock goliath Mogwai) and has delivered an album of ballsy song writing confidence coupled with a sense of modest understatement. For a band to release an album that encompass song writing of this quality and yet to bide its time in releasing it (rather than rushing a sub-par recording) proves De Rosa to be a very rare proposition indeed.
>> Russell Moore
www.wearederosa.com
>> Chemikal Underground
Since playing an absolutely brilliant show for the Lick launch night a few months back it has been this writer’s main aim to get a hold of De Rosa’s album – and having received a copy it has become clear that it was worth the wait.
It’s no secret that De Rosa spent a great deal of time on this album. Releasing ‘Camera’ back in 2004 to pacify their steadily growing fan base it has been time very well spent completing their debut ‘Mend’. The album has not only a ferociously good set of songs, it has the spirit of a piece of work that has been cared for and carefully structured. Mend opens with ‘Father’s Eyes’: it is a fantastic song. Simple guitar and bass lines allow the full affect of Matthew Henry’s urgent vocals to drive us along before the noise builds to a climatic end. Next up is one of the best songs in recent memory ‘Camera’. This is the sound of Interpol set to eleven – it’s a scratchy and static-charged monster of a tune. Any band would kill to get hold of a song of this standard, especially when it can be put to such devastating use in the live setting.
Mend is an album of varying moods and textures. For every blistering modern rock rough diamond there is an opening for a soothing yet skewed quiet number. ‘New Lanark’ and ‘Hopes & Little Jokes’ give the album the perfect calm-before-the-storm that the natural world demands.
The overall feeling when listening to this tightly packed 35 minute wonder is one of triumph. De Rosa has been able to live up to the hype of playing Manchester’s In the City (as well as justifying their support of rock goliath Mogwai) and has delivered an album of ballsy song writing confidence coupled with a sense of modest understatement. For a band to release an album that encompass song writing of this quality and yet to bide its time in releasing it (rather than rushing a sub-par recording) proves De Rosa to be a very rare proposition indeed.
>> Russell Moore
www.wearederosa.com
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