Ad Astra is the latest album by New York based goth rock act Black Rose Burning that carries on in similar fashion of The Wheel, the band's first album that came out in 2021. The band is fronted by George Grant alongside Luis Infantas and Frank Morin. As with the Wheel the album was recorded at Jacknife Sound in New York with help from Jason Corbett.
The album opens with the title track Ad Astra that is part of the Latin Phrase Ad Astra Per Astera a phrase that has been a fascination for Black Rose Burnings song writer George Grant since he was a kid, as the fascination of wondering what would happen, if we were more fascinated with the stars than with destroying each other. As this goth floor filler keeps claiming that they have become digital, which with the advances in AI is more and more possible by the day, as the guitar solos against a descending synth line.
Think Too Much is full of post millennial angst for the state of everything, as your turned inside out once more trying to figure it all out. The guitars feel frazzled raging against the drums and synths making sure as always, they have one eye on that dancefloor.
Sing To Me to soothe away the pains of yet another major disaster, the need to have a song to calm you down, take away the pain and anger at all the horrors of modern times, on this slow thoughtful song.
Fight! Isn't built around chants and shouts for another Fight! To break out, this is swirling goth guitars, synths and woodblock percussion, trying to break up the argument before it leads to a fight, breaking up yet another relationship, will they ever stop lying to themselves, allowing themselves to become happy for once.
So Cold is an almost lighters in the air goth anthem with some interesting Flamenco style handclaps, for all they ways you pretended and deceived them, by being So Cold and icy like a real gothic Ice Queen that every good goth boy would be attracted too.
Night Terrors cause me to lose focus enough to need to hit rewind on the selector, as they try to keep track of everyone who's died recently, the nightmares for all those gone too soon, how do we get out of this nightmare, what can be done to not wake up sweating afraid, worrying for the sanity of the planet.
Stranger is the gauzy slow goth song of hope for some interaction with that Stranger, while always feeling the need to educate that stranger who has appeared on the scene, will it go the way it always does, as you suffer the abuse to really fit in.
Become The Machine is more dancefloor ready Goth action as you fuse with all the AI and become the shape shifting, space travelling goth of the 21st century, the neon edges of your black latex space suit changing color as you move across the dancefloor, once more robotic dance steps become your normal way of moving.
The Album closes with the other half of the Latin phrase the albums named after, as Per Aspera weaves through space at warp speed for a goth tune, being sent out into deep space hoping to find a planet not too far away, where goths of all tribes are welcome and in control, hopefully all the like-minded goth souls on earth will stop arguing about how dreadful Sisters Of Mercy concerts are, instead they will join Black Rose Burning once more time on that eternal goth club dancefloor.
Find out more at https://www.blackroseburning.com/ https://blackroseburning.bandcamp.com/album/ad-astra https://www.facebook.com/blackroseburning
