The Fear Machine is the fourth album by Putnam Valley, New York based darkwave post punk goth band Black Rose Burning, the album's title correctly suggests this album is about the current state of the world and the bands home country in particular. Black Rose Burning are George Grant and Luis Infantas who recorded at PVR co in Putnam Valley.
The album opens with The Herald Of The Change that sounds like classic Black Rose Burning, so nothing much has changed since the bands last album, is this goth floor filler about menopause or some more fundamental change, they tell us to wake up, release the titan over insistent drums and dark hued guitars.
Winter Fields are filled with people who have no light behind there eyes, they are dead from the waist up, parroting talking points and ramping up fear and disunity, how we intervene sparking positive change in these modern digital zombies, is it appears, part of Black Rose Burnings core mission to bring the love from outer space.
Odysseus is a slower far more synth driven journey into the ancient myths, how they might pertain to our modern world, they listen to the echoes through eternity, at the mistakes being made once more, can we ever learn from drowned flotillas of ancient history.
Into The Black they are standing on the edge of time, looking back from the bridge of a departing ship, hopefully a prison craft taking the core of the Billionaire rapists of earth off into exile, to the furthest ends of the galaxy, they may decide to jettison that poisonous cargo on the other side of Uranus, but still as long as they can get them all on board we might still save humanity.
The Fear Machine is marching towards us all, changing our lives for the worst, bringing more hatred and despair, fear of the other, how to fight back and overcome all the constant fear, one dancefloor banger at a time, not that the apostles of fear will listen to us normal alternative folk, who want to live and love in peace, but we may as well dance in front of them at every opportunity, making clear they are not winning, although these days that may have rather drastic consequences sadly.
Retro takes us back to a time before computers ran all our lives, they are all dressed in black, ready to go clubbing and having a great time dancing and partying, just not worrying about the current apocalypse, yeah to be old school new wave goth, anything but ending up a groyper, lets all go have some retro fun, like we are back at Full Tilt or Astral Flight, the Cat Club, Studio 54 or any of our favourite haunts of old.
When The Master Calls it is up to you not to hear the call, time to disobey and carry on living your best alternative life, try to ignore the sadness the orange master is causing, the synths pulsate showing the ways that resistance may help to free you from all this tyranny.
Sadness is all around us, it might seem overwhelming like you're walking on broken glass, with cymbal crashes, phaser gun sounds and the current normal thought that it might all have come to an end, is there any way to carry on and move forwards, back to a better brighter new day, rather than the all-consuming Sadness. He has also been abandoned by the one he loves, although these days she may have been transported to another country, for not fitting the current regimes idea of what an All American looks like.
Roses In The Dark held close to your nose, to keep away the stench of the current darkness surrounding everything, they pledge to bring you the Roses In The Dark in part as a requiem for a time when fear didn't stalk your every waking moment.
Beautiful Disaster is a description of the current ugliness infecting everything the American government stands for, treating the people as the enemy, like they are back in East Germany or 1960's Albania, you can still dance on the grave of a once proud nation, dealing with having become a global disgrace, they still want to love the country they call home, even if the current leaders don't think they really belong.
The album closes with Before The Wall one last missive of hope among the ruins, hoping against hope that they will not see their friends, fans and families lined up in front of that wall, being mown down by ice age stormtroopers, they want to remember life before the erection of the most pointless wall since the Berlin one.
Find out more at https://blackroseburning.bandcamp.com/album/the-fear-machine https://www.blackroseburning.com/ https://www.facebook.com/blackroseburning
