Since we had an artist spotlight on the punk band The Stalin this week, courtesy of R.Y.O, I thought I'd do a review of one of my absolute favorite albums today. Though Sads are technically classified as visual kei, and Kiyoharu is one of the pioneers of the now-iconic 90s Nagoya-kei sound, most people who have heard this album thought it was pure punk from around 1985... Mind, these were some of the vets of the punk scene, not a musically oblivious 8th grader. The Rose God Gave Me is an artistic triumph, and brilliantly put together. From the CD cover to each page, to the themes of the tracks, Sads aim to tell a story with each album, but still to leave you wondering, what story was it that you heard.
