Rouge Rouge LP
Providing a seemingly endless supply of attention grabbing music, Phantom keeps the bar high with ROUGE’s debut LP. With nothing to scale it, I thought the cover photo was a crack pipe, but liner notes explain that it was a homemade bat crafted from a shopping cart handle that was used “during riots after a demonstration against the financial policy of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt”—while this sets the tone for the abrasive music within, the lyrics definitely fall less on the political and more on the personal. Take for example the caustic “I take pictures of myself ‘cause I need destruction / Give me a zero or a ten” from “Images,” or the scathingly self-critical “01 / 01” unabashedly singing “Friendships turned out unstable / Cold coffee cups on the kitchen table / Months passed—it felt like dreaming.” Post-punk is clearly on display here with these personal lyrics, paired with a front-of-the-mix grumbling bass and reverb-heavy guitars. Don’t miss the boat on this latest offering from Berlin’s ROUGE.