BLOOD ROSES: Enough is never enough LP 1985 Rare, overlooked UK Gothic death rock (The Southern Death Cult)! + videos.

Description

Rare UK pressing, released in 1985 on the Audiodrome Records label (SIN 1).
Blood And Roses were a pioneering UK post-punk Gothic rock band. This is an original copy of their debut album – a very difficult to find collectors piece, in excellent condition and complete with inner sleeve containing all lyrics.

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Blood and Roses were one of the most caustic UK Gothic death rock bands ever to be overlooked. They had strong guitar hooks and vocals that drip with seductive morbidity. Extremely dynamic, they were one of the best goth punk bands. Their guitarist was extremely talented, and they often had keyboards added into the mix. The songs could be slow and brooding, or fast and aggressive.
Blood and Roses covered songs from John Carpenters soundtrack work, some of the most modernly creepy soundscapes to be included in horror/sci-fi movies in the eighties, that make for perfect death rock instrumentals.
Guitarist Bob Short and Dave Roberts (Sex Gang Children) grew up in the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective (an anarchist/anti-vivisection group) in the 70s. Lisa Kirby, the singer, also did the album artwork for most of the Blood & Roses records.

Audiodrome Records
Catalog#: SIN 1
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: UK
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Alternative Rock, New Wave, Goth Rock

Tracklist
A1 Enough Is Never Enough
A2 (Some) Like It Hot
A3 Your Sin Is Your Salvation
A4 Whirr
A5 Roles
A6 Breakdown
B1 Assault On Precinct 13
B2 The Tower Falls
B3 Possession
B4 Living For Today
B5 Tomorrow
B6 Spit Upon Your Grave

Spit Upon Your Grave (audio only / black screen):

Naming themselves after an old vampire flick based on Sheridan le Fanus Carmilla, Blood and Roses were destined to become the great lost Goth band that never was.

First coming to major attention in the British musical press along with Brigandage around 1983, the band suffered from too much attention too soon, hitting the front page of NME at a time when the only thing they’d ever officially released was the Love Under Will EP (Kamera, 1983) and the track ShM YHShVH on The Whip compilation (Jungle, 1983). A transcript of the original NME article is here: www.scathe.demon.co.uk/posipunk.htm

Saddled by the media with the label positive punk the resulting public backlash to a genre totally invented by the press reportedly nearly killed off both bands, and the departure of their original drummer and the tragic misfortune of their original bass player Jez being literally hit by a bus would see Blood and Roses disappear from view for a few years.

When they do resurface in 1995, it would be in triumphant style in the form of the Enough is Never Enough album. The cover art was done by the band themselves and, while lacking much in the aesthetics department needs to be viewed in the light that Blood and Roses were very much from the DIY school of thought and as guitarist Bob Short put it;

We didnt have designers and image consultants. We didn’t have a team of suits planning our next move. We just did it ourselves and let what ever happened happen. Besides, if wed pooled our meager resources, wed still have been short of a pot to piss in. There are quite a few illicit substances that are way more interesting than your average A&R man.

The album Enough Is Never Enough is exceptional. Blood and Roses were quite obviously reading from the same play book as Sex-Gang Children, but in a vastly less confrontational way. How I wish Goth had continued in this direction. Although Im unclear why they chose to release Some Like it Hot as a single in the light of much stronger contributions here (perhaps its a matter of personal taste), the title track, Enough is Never Enough, Your Sin is Your Salvation and The Tower Falls all represent towering icons of what Goth should have become.