Aphids As Lovers are a Sacramento, California based rock n roll band who incorporate aspects of post punk, art rock, garage rock and noise over the coarse of this seven song release known as the “Rosa Mortem Demos”.
After a really cool and slightly eerie intro the group blast into the driving riff of “Hum”. It’s got a garage rock stance but leaves plenty of room for experimentation too as it’s mix of spacey psychedelia and grit and grime prove to be a perfect combination and I love the raw feel it all gives off.
Next up is “Passionless Love Making Is A Dead Marriage” which is an absolutely tremendous song and brings to mind artists like Television and Wire but blended with a modern indie rock twist.
Meanwhile “smokescreendream” takes that style and turns up the volume even more as blasts of blistering feedback run rampant throughout the tale end of the track.
The tempo comes down a bit on the more melancholy songs like “Slowburn” and “Monochrome”. Both are full of rich guitar chords and passionate vocals and have that 80’s “college rock” feel to them that I’m a huge fan of. They also throw in an acoustic version of “Monochrome” at the end that reeks of Replacements vibes.
Overall this is a most excellent demo that showcases the bands amazing songwriting and gives you an idea of how awesome they must be live. It’s the kind of rugged stripped down rock n roll that should be blasted in a dark, dingy, sweaty club at 1:30 in the morning. Highly recommended.
