Aside from the opening spoken intro in the form of ‘The Fallen (Genesis 3 1 -13) – yes I also hate ‘intro’ tracks; Sin of Night’s ‘Take the Snake’ is decidedly quirky Rock – with a chunky bass driven ‘Suicide’ to open you’ll be somewhat taken aback by the sound that somehow meshes Metal with Goth and Pop with a decided ‘accent’ to the jarring female vocals just to throw you even more. After listening to that I wasn’t sure where we would be going so the only option really was to press on!
‘Grindhouse’ that follows takes that odd female voice and a swirling riff, tribal drums and a Goth punk attitude through a washing machine to almost wipe away all traces of Goth and Punk to just leave simple not very fulfilling noise; and whilst ‘Oh My Mind’ has a better riff driving it the high-pitched vocals just shout ‘art rock’ – there’s clear intent and attitude and a little to remind you of Goth bands like Skeletal Family but the substance seems lacking. At times this is so quirky its almost enjoyable, but at others it just sounds vaguely ‘bad’.
Few albums leave me wondering what to make of them, but Rome’s ‘Sin of the Night’ do just that – is this nu-punk or some cosmic joke? It’s hard to say…
Surely a track like ‘The Flame of Rock and Roll’ will hold the answer? A straight forward riff bursts forth, a high-pitched scream then some bad vocals – it kind of reminds me of the music I was making at 15, it’s got attitude, ideas are there, but really it’s just not that good. The music is simple, the vocals are awful and yet somehow you can stop listening just in case you miss something!
Trust me I listened to this so that you don’t have to, but as a caveat I’m not going to write this off completely, if it were a little more ‘over the top’ these guys may be onto something as big as Babymetal…