April was the month with the biggest number of releases so far in 2023. The 66 releases we listened to during this month covered everything from dream pop to existential symphonic metal, and for that reason it represents almost all the moods that we went through the last month. Our favourite albums of the month reflect this incredible mix of music that talented people created for us from around the world.
I can’t really trace my journey between The 100 Club and the conjunction of four tree trunks in an ancient wood in North London, but this is where I chose to start writing this review. It might have something to do with the fact that it’s been three years since I found myself in this mindset again, almost as long as it has been since I was last in The 100 Club.
This is a photo review of the live album launch by The Black Delta Movement at the 1o0 Club.
Blaue Rosen 
There was a palpable darkness all around us in March, which somehow, all our favourite releases of the month, have managed to channel through their sound.
The soundtrack of this month, will take you on a dark experimental journey, pass you through industrial sonic spaces with incredible texture, electronic and synth brilliance and land you on ethereal otherworldly worlds. The trip promises to be poetic, ritualistic and reflective with a few moments of uneasiness.
There were many highlights during this month, and the first one was the return of Depeche Mode with their darkest, most solemn and more gothic album to date. Having teased us with a great video accompanying their best song of the album ‘Ghosts Again‘, Depeche Mode unleashed a darkness that seemed to have been nicely disguised up to now. The band’s life much like everyone else’s has been affected by everything that the world has gone through in the last few years but also by the unexpected loss of Andy Fletcher, the co-founder and keyboardist of Depeche Mode. Their last album ‘Memento Mori’ does not hold the melancholy back, it doesn’t prettify any verse and it is not here to make us feel happy. All this is evident from the slower, darker rhythms and the sadness in the lyrics that traverse this whole album. There is bitterness, there is sadness about the loss of their bandmate, and there is still some jauntiness here and there. Similarly strong, was the new album by Fever Ray ‘Radical Romantics’. Six years after their latest studio album ‘Plunge’, the band’s new album is more haunting than ever. Like Depeche Mode, Fever Ray have embraced the darkest corners of the human mind as far as their lyrics are concerned but have also added tribal, minimal and dance elements in their rhythms, making this album much more interesting this time.
As far as the post-punk part of this monthly soundtrack is concerned, De Ambassade‘s sophomore album was a true revelation. Blending the boundaries between poetry and early industrial music, ‘The Fool’ is a cinematic album that made us wonder where is the movie and/or book that it accompanies? Using Flemish, German and English in their lyrics, mixing vocals and other samples in attractive ways, De Ambassade have been inspired by John Cage but also from new wave and horror folk cinema I dare to assume, judging from the overall atmosphere of this album. One has to admire the air of mystery that this album creates and envelops us with.
Finally, the new offerings by Fatima Al Qadiri and Alan Currall also need some special mention. The former, is an EP that blends eastern music rhythms and vocals with some deeply ceremonial and dark music. The vocals are layered and texturised throughout and their repetitive nature increases the reflective element of the sound before the notes add an air of disquiet in the atmosphere. We don’t often see such level of experimentation with eastern music and for that reason we felt this EP deserved a good place in our soundtrack. ‘Buried Structures’ the latest album by Alan Currall is the only release that got us on our feet and allowed us to breathe without worrying too much. Moments of electro/synth brilliance take inspiration from the house and techno scenes and create the only album that we can dance to!
You can browse the rest of our playlist in order to find out, self-released singles and EPs by new and well-established bands.
We won’t tire you more but we do hope that if you like any of these releases as much as we did, you will not think twice about supporting the bands!
Blaue Rosen
February was definitely a better month in some ways, and its music releases are testament to the different energy that it brought about. We listened to 58 independent and underground albums, EPs and singles and we created the soundtrack of the month that took us on an electro/industrial, punk, darkwave, synthwave, post-punk trip which had neoclassical and black metal moments of brilliance as well.
This is the second part of our interview with the band ATARAXIA. You can read the first part of this interview here.
Blauerosen: I find the connection you have made at so many levels (aesthetics, subject matter of the album) between the four stages of magnus opus and the four elements fascinating. I find it enlightening that you talk about this album as the journey of a hero through the four elements. I sense that the word ‘hero’ is not accidental. Can you expand a little bit about how you perceive all this?
ATARAXIA, an all-time favourite band of ours from the neoclassical/ethereal spectrum of the dark alternative scene, released a beautiful album towards the end of 2022. This album featured in our playlist of favourite albums of September 2023, as we loved everything about it. The visuals and the video press release intrigued us further at a deeper spiritual level so, naturally, we wanted to catch up with the band and learn more about how they are and what inspired them this time. In this interview we talk about their inspiration, their collaboration with Insetti Xilografi, the role of nature and of memory in triggering moments of inspiration and much more. This interview is published in two parts.
1.Old Timer /2. Common Sense /3. National Team /4. Eastbound and Down /5. Strut /6. Morning After Mourning /7. An Ideal for Living /8. Points of View /9. Eazy Being Lazy /10. Solidarity Song
Release date: 27 January 202
Label: The State 51 Conspiracy
…or else an ode to a disenfranchised leftist youth
First things first – it has been a while since a band has put messages across in such powerful ways. Indeed, it has been about five years since the release of such a powerful album by a different band aimed at an audience with similar political beliefs but a very different idiosyncrasy. Hotel 
Lux are named after a safe house hotel in Moscow to which communists were exiled, though it failed in its mission as a lot of them ended up being killed during Stalin’s purges. The band, however, has been steadily making its mark since 2017, ever since their surreal song (full with political allegory), ‘The Last Hangman‘. That song, and the accompanying video, left us anticipating their debut album.
If January made you want to smash things and, more importantly, if you’ve NEVER had this urge before, then our favourite releases of the month will be the perfect soundtrack for you.
Not only did we have the first solo album by Singapore Sling’s vocalist Henrik Björnsson called The Cult Of One, setting the mood up but we also had an abysmally dark black metal release to go with it by a side project of Gnaw Their Tongues, called Den Edele Dood.
