By: Scott Foster

Label: Neuropa

Available: September 1, 2014

Official Websites

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Roses-Never-Fade/165331503620181

http://www.rosesneverfade.com/

http://www.facebook.com/neuroparecords

One of the benefits of choosing my own material to review is that I get to step in to other genres of music. One of these days the boss man will probably order me to focus on strictly metal, but until he does I’m going to keep on going off like this. Today’s offering is from dark neofolk (or gothic acoustic, depending on who is writing the blurb) band Roses Never Fade.

Devil Dust offers up 10 songs stripped to bare bones guitars and vocals. They range from haunting ambience, dirges, to…well, not really upbeat, but not quite as melancholy as the others. While execution of the album was generally excellent, I’ll go ahead and say that the vocals of tracks 3 and 8 didn’t really do it for me. It’s interesting to note that these are among the “less melancholy” of the songs. A friend once told me that an album was a good deal if you like 2 or 3 songs on it. While I disagree with setting the bar that low, 8 out of 10 ain’t bad.

RATING:

4/5

LINE UP:

Nick Brewer – Guitars

Nathan Opposition – Vocals

Austin Rathmell – Vocals