Demo Spotlight: Demonstration by Coming Up Roses

By Ryan Germ

Emotional beatdown. 2 words that shouldn’t go together. But South Jersey Metallic HC outfit Coming Up Roses is trying to change that. This release clocks in at 11 minutes with only 3 tracks on this demo, Jesus Christ. Vocalist for CUR, Keller, shot me over the masters so I can get the least compressed version for spotlighting purposes, so shoutout to him. I normally keep to myself at shows and stay in my own bubble but he’s one of the first people in my local scene that hung out with me and supported Shadowtalkers from the jump, so all love goes out to him. I’m not gonna let that stop me from saying my honest feelings on this demo though, so let’s dive in.

The first song, Metalcore Song #1, starts with this kinda Black Metal esque riff before the drums kick in and go into a punishing blast beat assault. After that it goes into a heavy brutal breakdown for the verse, Keller then lets out this pig squeal which goes into an even more crushing breakdown. It goes back to just the guitar with the vocals following when the crash gets hit which nicely transitions into a slow 2 step part. It goes back into the beatdown portion for the verse getting spiced up with some tiny blast beats. After that, everything cuts out and some leads trigger a side to side part before the real breakdown comes in heavy. It’s more stompy than most metalcore breakdowns and actually feels like they wanted to do something other than the overdone “let’s make a caveman riff for people to fight to”.  The drums have some nice dynamics with how the tempo picks up slightly when the vocals come back in. That lasts around 30 seconds long until the track ends.

The master version for this next song basically told me to go fuck myself, so I’ll talk about the slightly more compressed streaming version. If I miss some small detail then I apologize, but this next song is Ego Killer. It starts off with a tough guy riff over sone strokes on the ride which starts a side to side before exploding into a breakdown with ambient dissonance in the background. There’s this cool part after where the tom + snare combo alongside the riff give this building feeling with the ride keeping time. That restarts the breakdown and it’s way heavier because of that dynamic. We switch into a 5-7-8 metalcore style fast part before switching back and forth into a stompy part. You guessed what follows after that segment. A breakdown, but this one’s really sick, has a nice pitch harmonic jawn in it and a more bouncy feeling in the picking pattern. After that part it goes back to the fast part and then the bouncy picking breakdown AGAIN. Everything cuts out and it goes into a huge breakdown, very Shattered Realm esque. I don’t see much of the emotional influence, anyways that ends the track.

Final track is The Final Ballad and it starts with a side to side part before the ride bell queues in a big breakdown to start us off. I like the little noodley feeling in between the chugs. After the breakdown we get this 2 step part that sounds like it could be a part of some easycore or pop punk song which I fuckin love or like an early Atreyu song. It goes into another breakdown after the 2 step part. Keller’s vocals get pretty wild during the breakdown, and there’s some gang vocals too which is sick. Everything cuts out and it goes back into that 2 step part that I love dearly. I just picture a dude in short shorts looking mad but stoked 2 stepping to it. Anyways we go into the previous breakdown again which is a nice one. Everything cuts out again before going into a lead filled spoken word part (I’ll eat my words now about not seeing the emotional influence). After that it goes into a very nice lead into the breakdown and the ride bell to begin it just drives it in to your skull, and that breakdown ends the demo. Pretty good debut. Solid riffs, filled with breakdowns but not in a lame Emmure type way where it’s just 0-0-0 bullshit, and the drumming is tight. The only thing that I think could benefit them greatly aside from ironing out the kinks that every new band begins with is more variety of parts. I think some cleans over the lead heavy bits would be sick if they’re done in the right way. But overall I could see them being a huge Daze or Streets Of Hate band in a couple years. This demo is a huge step in getting them to where I see them getting to.