Review Summary: Rose Kemp's greatest musical accomplishment featuring a new focus on exquisite dark undertones and experimental landscapes.
For an original folk artist experimenting with fresh new elements to her already well established catalogue, Rose Kemp has really outdone herself on Golden Shroud. The blend of metal, rock, doom, and even drone, fits extremely well is this 3 track modern classic. Being the daughter of whose parents are parts of an English folk-rock band, Rose Kemp’s influences obviously run deep, and are clearly displayed on her latest effort.
Track one, Black Medik II, begins with a highly innovative, multi-layered a-cappella that last for 1 minute and 30 seconds. From here the track goes into "slower than usual" rock riffs backing up Rose's souring vocals. Particularly notable are the sludgy guitar tone's and distorted bass guitar, showcasing an atmosphere that compliments the slow tempo-doomy passages found throughout this track and album. As mentioned before, Rose makes use of souring vocals showing her range, but she balances her vocal approach with mid-range and extremely low-range for the likes of female singer. I actually thought there was a harmonizing male voice with hers, but this is not true. For an example of this, listen to the opening a-cappella mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.
Track two, Blood Run Red, is the most experimental song off this album as well being the darkest. Like the previous track, Blood Run Red begins with another a-cappella lasting about 2 minutes. In the element of experimentation, unconventional dark sounding chords begin to slowly ring with a plethora of lethargic growls and death-like shrieks. At this point a melodic riffs comes in while Rose repeats "make the blood run red" with varying change ups. The experimental factors continue with slow tempos throughout the rest of the track with random clean sections coupled with distortion. Track 3, Lead Coffin, rings of drone and doomy elements with an almost blues-jazz fusion. I can’t find the lyrics for this album so I can't compliment on them as a whole, but I can say the music itself sparks interest in the listener because you have never heard an album like this before.
On the path of creating groundbreaking, inspirational material, Rose Kemp has just executed a musical revolution, opening the door for many artists alike to explore their creative abilities. Golden Shroud takes already proven elements from previous artist and formulates them into a fresh album, sparking interest from all music lovers on planet earth. Do not let this album pass you by, it will take many listens to fully appreciate it, but the fun part is each listen in my opinion is better than the last.
