Six Of The Best: Roses In December

Roses In December (formerly Crux) channel punk, grunge and prog into a cathartic, politically charged sound shaped by life in Newcastle under late capitalism. Fiercely socialist and emotionally direct, they aim to turn collective frustration into creative release and open eyes to the systems we live within.

Their latest EP, Divided and Conquered, takes the listener on an action-packed voyage, kicking off with the punked-up power of Battleship Boomer—all ferocious, theatrical riffs and snarling, in-your-face vocals. Sharks follows with crunchy, occasionally funky licks and shifting dynamics, while Inferno moves from tender falsetto to stabbing staccato in a way that nods to Queens of the Stone Age. Closer Self-Pollution begins sparse and spacious before collapsing into a radged wall of sound.

Across the board, it’s a tightly produced collection that uses contrast and shade to dramatic effect—balancing intensity with control.

Here, the band tells us about their influences across the board with six of the best…

1) The Male Online by Barney Farmer and Lee Healey – Viz (Comic strip)
I got into reading Viz at university. The fact the magazine was created in Newcastle and had these relatable cartoonish Geordie characters helped me settle in a weird way whilst I was away from home. I’d also proudly show the comic strips to my confused southern housemates who didn’t believe such whacky characters actually existed. One sketch which always made me howl in a weird despairing way was The Male Online which portrayed a middle-aged man with a fixation for The Daily Mail. The sketch felt particularly relevant during my university years as Brexit dominated the headlines. Maybe it was my young hopeful naivety but I always thought negative views on migrants would dissipate over time as the world progressed. Though, I didn’t do history at university and I hadn’t seen Stewart Lee’s sketch about how migrants have been persecuted throughout the history of humanity. 

It feels as though the persecution of migrants has ramped up since the general election in 2024 and the excessive attention a party as small as the Reform party has been getting. So the first two tracks on the EP, ‘Battleship Boomer’ and ‘In the Channel of a Hate Crime’ were born from my disgust and anger that politicians and mainstream media were vilifying migrants. Battleship Boomer in particular was inspired by the character in The Male Online. The lyrics for Battleship Boomer imagine a game of Battleship played by someone from the right-wing demographic, the boomer, versus someone from the left-wing demographic, a millenial/gen z. On the plastic ships of the boomer are super yachts and the mega-rich, whilst the millennial defends migrants and dinghies on their side of the board. In a hypocritical frenzy, the boomer demolishes all the millennials’ ships. In my head the whole time I was writing the lyrics was the frenzy the character in The Male Online would get himself into, and to really get into the role I forced myself to read a load of comments on the Daily Mail’s website. It was sickening.

Some of the songs from the EP became so cartoonish, that when thinking about the artwork, we decided to get in touch with Lee Healey, the cartoonist for The Male Online. To our surprise Lee was more than happy to work with us, and created some unbelievable artwork for the singles, Battleship Boomer and Inferno. Lee also sculpted the EP artwork. It was a privilege to work with Lee, he’s so talented, and helped bring our wacky ideas to life.

2) Marabou Stork Nightmares – Irvine Welsh (Novel)
Irvine Welsh is truly the voice of punk. I’ve never known an author write such relatable scenarios, characters. He expresses such raw, unflinching social commentary. I was reading Marabou Stork Nightmares around the time I wrote the music and lyrics for the EP. What stuck with me most, which carried into the themes of the EP, was its exploration of the cycle of trauma/hate. In my opinion, it’s my favourite novel by Irvine Welsh, and probably my favourite book of all time. Without giving away spoilers, what struck me most was the poignancy of the anti-hero having a revelation at the very end of the book, that the cycle of trauma/hate has followed him throughout his life, and he’s been responsible for perpetuating the cycle, directly causing other people’s trauma, and how he wished he’d have been strong enough to stop the cycle. The EP’s title, Divided and Conquered, is the all encompassing theme of the EP. Although each song explores more specific sub-themes, the story from start to finish is different characters continuing the cycle of hate, and how burnt bridges can’t be repaired.  Maybe I’m even continuing this cycle that continues to divide us by writing such a scathing criticism of these characters that seem to prop up the political status quo. 

I think the influence of Welsh’s work comes out most in the EP’s finale, Self-Pollution. Welsh always writes about characters from his local Edinburgh, and Self-Pollution was of the same ilk. Self-Pollution tells a story about self-destruction and the decay of our planet, a mirror between personal addiction and environmental collapse. A story I’ve seen in my friends, in the local area where drinking is a part of our culture, where our frustrations with the politics of the country, stress at work, issues in our personal lives are drowned by drink. I unsubtly compare this to the pollution in our planet, a story of short term fixes for long term problems.

3) In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg 
4) Main Titles – From “Beetlejuice” Soundtrack by Danny Elfman
Two for one for classical music. I like songs that represent certain emotions, and I think there’s no better musical ally to mania than these two classical pieces. From the rushed tempo’s In the Hall of the Mountain King to the whacky oompah in the Beetlejuice soundtrack. When creating the sonic landscape for the EP, again I wanted to create something cartoonish that mirrored the satirical lyrics, and these two songs were the titans I looked at for reference. The guitar riff in ‘Battleship Boomer’ and ‘In The Channel of a Hate Crime’ was actually created from me trying to play the melody to ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ and getting it so wrong, I created a new riff! I even made a whole song out of that same disjointed riff in ‘In the Channel of a Hate Crime’ which directly reference the title ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ and uses the song as a template where the same melody is repeated again and again, but each time faster and more frenetic.

5) Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Dante’s Inferno has long served as a mirror for human emotion and moral descent, a journey through the darker layers of the self. Its influence runs deep in modern art and music, inspiring pieces like Radiohead’s Pyramid Song, whose dreamlike descent echoes Dante’s crossing into the afterlife. The theme also resonated through the late Rachel Owen’s visual work, which reinterpreted the Divine Comedy through contemporary grief and redemption. Both channel Dante’s timeless search for meaning amid despair. One of the single’s from the EP, Inferno, directly references the poem in the title and the lyrics. As Dante passes through the gate of Hell, there’s an inscription on the gate with the phrase “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate“, which can be translated as “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. Inferno describes a similar despairing hell but more of a warning of what the earth can become from global warming, war, nuclear bombs with world leaders/oligarchs snatching more and more power from the people via force or covert means.

6) Murder Death by De Staat
+7) Fatso by Warmduscher
This has become seven of the best, I do apologise. I’ve referenced four out of the five songs in the EP so far, though I’ve not mentioned the darkly funky, satirical track blending biting social commentary with cartoonish swagger that is ‘Sharks’. ‘Sharks’ tells the tragic story of a father’s desperate attempt to save his terminally ill daughter through an absurd charity voyage, a critique of private healthcare and the fetishisation of fundraising culture. With sea sounds, analog synths, tremolo guitars and a tongue-in-cheek nod to Jaws, it captures both tragedy and groove. The two main musical influences are Murder Death by De Staat and Fatso by Warmduscher. Murder Death acted almost as a rhythmic template, we didn’t steal the groove, but you can definitely hear a very similar drive. 

Whilst writing the EP, I was listening to a lot of Warmduscher, and I loved the effortless vocals of ‘Fatso’, how even though the music was funky and a bit whacky, it was accompanied by a sneering almost creepy vocal which gave the song a much more sinister feel. I already thought of what I wanted the lyrics to be about, and I knew the vocals couldn’t be as playful and funky as the accompanying music, so I played with the juxtaposition of a growling creepy vocal line over the groove for the verses. Without ‘Fatso’ I don’t think we could’ve reflected the sinister undertone of the lyrics in the song.