Cast Out To Sea – Chapel of Roses (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I always love it when you are presented with a song to write about and find that all of your “go-to” words and phrases don’t quite fit. In these times, you find yourself in new writing territory, really working in the moment, writing your way through pastures new, and that can only be because the band in question is doing something similar. 

The band in question is Chapel of Roses, a Nashville post-punk band that returns to the fray after a decades-long hiatus. Post-punk, like most music labels, is too broad a term to convey much meaning and whilst in their guitar-fuelled, indie/rock sound, you can hear a lot of what those years, the eighties, sounded like, as always, it is the other musical inclusions that make the music stand out and stay relevant, forward-thinking even.

For example, by the time I am even halfway through Cast Out To Sea, all I have in my mind is an image of Bobby Gillespie and the Primal Scream posse grooving and gyrating their way through their Screamadelica era, such is the dance-rock-acid-rave vibe that runs through this.

But, as you might imagine for a Nashville-based band, there is also the distant echo of a haunted country sound. Whereas a band from another clime or country would create those drifting sonics and delicate musical motifs with the standard electric guitar or maybe keyboards, here, authenticity reigns, and it is to the Pedal Steel guitar that they turn for such sounds. 

The result is a song that is foot-on-the-monitor enough to satisfy the rock fraternity, suitably groovesome for the dance crossover set and cool enough to keep the indie kids on board. Post-punk? Perhaps? But it is the post-punk that could only have only been birthed in a specific place and time, that being an astute American band making music in a post-genre world.

Fan-blimmin-tastic!