The Wheel is the second album by New York based Black Rose Burning and was recorded at PV Recording Co and mastered Jack Knife Sound in Vancouver. Black Rose Burning is George Grant and Frank Morin and Luis Infantas.
This opens with An Anthem For the Strange that does what the title says and is a shout out to the wall flowers, the weirdoes, the unusual those that don't fit in and yet all turn up together to the local Goth alternative EBM club and have a cool time together, as they tell them all to not be afraid and be themselves.
That leads straight into Black Sun Saturday that sounds like an anthem for people who live in dreadfully polluted towns where the sun always looks black and can only be helped by some very 80's style dancefloor goth tune somewhere between The Cure and Depeche Mode.
No Love Lost keeps threatening that Ice Age is coming and there will be no remorse like they want to strap us down and make us watch that film on repeat, rather than the sort of Ice Age Joy Division sang about over some gothy synth pop.
A Little Too Little is almost like Soft Cell musically and vocally while not being anywhere seedy enough lyrically as this is more of a normal song of heartbreak and break up.
Antonia doesn't sound like she's having sex with a tory politician or wearing a Chelsea shirt thankfully, but they are trying to woo her none the less, with a good goth dancefloor pitch, like she'll be the next Alice if only they can get this played at enough goth clubs even if the guitar solo sounds a bit out of place and too in thrall to Billy Duffy.
Gravity Drive is another song of love and pain and hope that if you change enough light bulbs on the dance floor you will have love and happiness among the darkness. Automatic Man isn't a request for his own Automatic lover to help him through the dark nights of winter, but it may as well be as this swirls and competes for space on the dancefloor.
There cover of the Buzzcocks classic Ever Fallen In Love? Seems to have been filtered through early Dead Or Alive if they had James Stevenson on guitar and is a very cool version.
Lightspeed is a song for space travelers as they fly through the galaxy with some squelchy sounds as the crew are all on deck hoping to find life in some far away galaxy if they don't just end up focusing on the bassline instead as you soon realize just how catchy the lyrics are.
The Wheel has a very late 80's goth feel to it, I want to compare them to Into A Circle, but that would only be that bands recordings and not there awful live gigs, that and the odd lyrical if not vocal nod to The Mission as the music also has a bit of The Creatures in its sound.
Every Single Time is the song that most justifies the press releases mention of Colourbox, it reminds me of seeing that band in a dry ice filled venue, as the object of this songs desire emerges from the dry ice as they move across the clubs dancefloor and you just think of all the things that could have been if things worked out differently.
The album closes with Solar Angels that's perfect to listen to while sipping some Sun Salutation tea and figuring out which Goth EBM club you want to go to next weekend, this is a song for that rarest of things a Goth sun worshipper.
Find out more at https://blackroseburning.bandcamp.com/album/the-wheel https://www.blackroseburning.com/ https://www.facebook.com/blackroseburning
