Systems of Romance

Keeping with the cassette theme, here’s a demo from a new band from Adelaide, Australia, who were gracious enough to send me the tape and their blessing to post the mp3s for you all to enjoy. This one is so fresh, it’s barely three months old!

There seems to be a very modern interest in the deathrock/batcave sound, with all the young bands cropping up with strong demos and limited releases. While the sound seemed to creep back in as early as the turn of the century thanks to the folks at Drop Dead, it’s taken this long for it to finally break out into more public consciousness, and there seem to be dozens of new bands (Anasazi, Winter Severity Index, Population, Bellicose Minds, Pleasure Leftists, etc.) eager to inherit the throne. It makes me yearn for a forgotten era, having been in a deathrock band many moons ago, wishing for a few more peers out there in the ether. Sadly, many of the bands from that time period have long since faded away, with the exception of Entertainment, who are gearing up to release a new LP on Disaro sometime this year.

Ok, so I got on a little bittersweet tangent there, sorry about that. Back to the post at hand.

Taking their name from either a classic Death In June album, a guideline for photography, OR a basic military strategy (all three invoke some excellent imagery) Rule of Thirds explore the classic deathrock sound a la Skeletal Family, Christian Death, Corpus Delecti, Move, Dance Macabre, and others in that vein. A mix of incisive guitars and a confident and smoldering female vocal are the ingredients for success here, and the organ-esque synths (a must for me when it comes to this style of music) stand out with a sense of melody and the rhythm section is top notch, hitting that perfect blend of composure and rawness that works best in this style. A little taste of early Siouxsie can be heard on “Northanger Abbey,” which invokes “Playground Twist” with it’s unified grooves and gloomy atmosphere. My favorite track is the leadoff “No More Moon,” which adds some male vocals to the mix and is ripe for guitar-driven club nights. Really great stuff here, both a mix of uptempo and slow burn tracks, so thanks to Celeste and the band for sending it my way! Hope you all enjoy it!

Rule of Thirds- Demo K7
1. No More Moon
2. Total Disappointment
3. Mother/Master
4. Stuck
5. Northanger Abbey

*download it here*

While the band has graciously offered the mp3s here for free, you can get a copy of the tape via Major Crimes Records.

This entry was posted on March 26, 2012 at 9:23 pm and is filed under 2000s, 2012, australia, deathrock, goth, goth-rock, post-punk, rule of thirds . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.