Gitane Demone & Paul Roessler – The New Young Kings Of Midnight (Album – Dark Vinyl)
Genre/Influences: Neo-Classic, Experimental.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: “The New Young Kings Of Midnight” was released by the end of 2023 resulting from a collaboration between famous vocalist Gitane Demone and Paul Roessler (who played with multiple great Punk- and other artists). This is a work about ‘death, mourning, transience and farewell’ and dedicated to their two friends Rozz Williams (Christian Death) and Darby Crash (The Germs).
Content: We’re listening to an intimate and poignant work featuring at one side the mysterious, and unique, vocals of Gitane Demone and at the other side Paul Roessler’s delicate music, accomplished with mainly piano but also cello.
+ + + : When you know the album has been dedicated to two friends who passed away by suicide you can get an idea about the emotional content behind this production. Both artists are totally complementary; creating an artistic symbiosis between excelling vocals -and poignant lyrics, and melancholic music parts. I like the album for its sensitive format. Gitane Demone’s timbre of voice remains a very unique experience.
– – – : This is an album you’ve to discover in the right circumstances. This is not a bite-sized piece of music.
Conclusion: A work filled with emotion and devotion; an artistic fusion between vocals and acoustic instruments.
Best songs: “April First”, “The New Young King Of Midnight”.
Rate: 7½ .
Artists: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013501260047 / www.facebook.com/paul.roessler.3
Label: www.darkvinyl.de / www.facebook.com/darkvinylrecords
Side-Line covered the album’s release in a separate announcement.
Listen to “The New Young Kings Of Midnight”:
About Gitane Demone & Paul Roessler
Gitane Demone, former singer of Christian Death alongside Rozz Williams, teamed up with Paul Roessler, known for his work with 45Grave and the Gitane Demone Quartet, on “The New Young Kings of Midnight”. The album originated in 2017, when Demone asked Roessler to write orchestral music for a tribute to Williams, tracing his early life and rise to stardom before his death by suicide. Roessler, who had lost his friend Darby Crash of The Germs to suicide as well, joined her in exploring the theme through the two men’s unrealized potential and the idea of rebirth. After hearing Holst’s “The Planets” performed at the Hollywood Bowl and the debut of Daniel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto, the pair wrote the orchestral pieces that became the album, released on Dark Vinyl at the end of 2023. Demone and Roessler followed it with the “The April First / Feather Remix EP”, also via Dark Vinyl, in February 2026.
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