Red R o s e s – “NVRCRY” and “Wasting My Time”
The nineties born artist and producer, Renee Ruth aka Red R o s e s, has dropped his debut full length album “Double R”. Rock, rap, electro, experimental and alternative are just some of the musical flavors included in this 9 track recording. This debut album serves as a perfect statement of intent: economical and tight, solid narrative, great performances and peerless creative production. Each song takes this to its logical conclusion, honing the Red R o s e s sound to its distilled essence. If Drake’s “Views” was an overlong, crowd-pleasing attempt at straddling every base that was physically possible, “Double R” is it’s polar opposite – steadfast, confident and completely uncompromising.
It’s hard to pick out specific highlights from an album so tightly sequenced, and differing in sound from song to song, but the opening piano-driven “Speedin”, is an undeniable slow-burning crowd pleaser. As is the melodic and multilayered “HELLBOY”, and the echoing electro synth propelled “BLIND”.
One of the strongest tracks on the album is without doubt the atmospheric “NVRCRY”, bathed in a hazy keyboard motif and overriding vocal effects built to mesmerize.
If from the opening track to the sixth cut, Red R o s e s maintains the somber mood and mid-tempo jaunt, “Joyride” breaks that spell by switching up two gears into overdrive. The upbeat track features fast-strummed jangling guitars, and a wave of urgent sounding synths.
“Social Disconnect” slides back into the album’s hypnotic spell, with its slow and steady instrumental ebb and flow. The final track, “Hypnosis” is a kind of hybrid as it switches midway between a softer all-embracing wall of sound to a harsher, more determined soundscape.
Talk about songs that bring emotions to life? Maybe it’s the mood of these songs. Maybe it’s the perfect blend of reverb, effects and electronics. But the sometimes singing, sometimes rapping voice blended with the ethereal sounds is so haunting that goosebumps are a guarantee.
Musically, Red R o s e s seems to eschew overblown shifts in dynamics and tempo on “Double R” to evidently focus on atmosphere and scaling his sound, which is his chief creative virtue. Albeit with peak grandiosity oozing and gushing from every pore.
For now, Red R o s e s gets by on the cathartic authenticity of his earnestness and the vestiges of his oblique roots to avoid the hollow skyscraping constructions of many of his peers who also manipulate vast crossover material such as can be heard on this album. “Double R” is a consolidation and refinement of Red R o s e s artistic strengths and explorations.
“Double R” is a triumph: a thrilling, immersive, occasionally eclectic collection of songs. Echoes of Red R o s e s’ electro-rock and hip-hop influences reverberate throughout these nine tracks, combined with forays into R&B and Pop. In short: it’s a potent distillation of each style Red R o s e s has preferred and perfected thus far. It may be interesting to see where he goes from here.
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