CD Reviews

The Rosebuds

Night of the Furies | Merge

By MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG | April 10, 2007

3.0 Stars

The title of the Rosebuds’ third full-length refers to Roman mythology, and the accompanying booklet sports Colonial American artwork. Soundwise, however, the North Carolina outfit — husband-and-wife principals Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, plus nearly a dozen guest musicians — set the wayback machine to early-’80s England, crafting dark, spry pop that’s thick with synths and noir guitars and indebted to OMD, Roxy Music, the Human League, and “Let’s Go to Bed”–era Cure. The Furies were a trio of goddesses sent to avenge unpunished crimes on Earth — mythological Charles Bronsons, if you will. Neither Howard’s seductive croon nor Crisp’s slightly less dramatic exhalations admit to specific misdeeds, but they’re racked by guilt and desperate for escape from fiends of their own creation. “Don’t ever look back, run as far as you can go/’Cause I’ll never be able to love anymore,” Howard warns in “My Punishment for Fighting”; “We cannot be saved from ourselves anymore,” he intones in “Silence by the Lakeside,” refusing to be comforted by Crisp’s coos. The night never seems to end around here, but at least there are plenty of opportunities to dance the demons — or the Furies — away.

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