Roses in December Turn Britain’s Political Chaos Into Punk Fury on ‘Divided and Conquered’

There’s a particular kind of rage that comes from watching your country eat itself in real time. Roses in December know that feeling intimately, and they’ve turned it into Divided and Conquered, a 21-minute explosion that sounds exactly like it was made by a band on the edge of losing it completely. Released November 7th, the Newcastle outfit’s five-track EP doesn’t just comment on Britain’s current state, it screams, snarls and occasionally laughs at the absurdity of it all.

The concept is blunt: division, greed, and the cycles of hate that’ve become part of the national fabric. Each track follows a different character spiraling through nationalism, desperation, private healthcare, and self-destruction. It’s Dante’s Inferno relocated to modern Britain, where the circles of hell look suspiciously like the Channel migrant crisis and a healthcare system that’s been stripped for parts. “The EP is basically us trying to process the absolute state of Britain right now, but doing it through a cartoon lens,” the band explains. When reality becomes satire, what else can you do?

They walked into Blank Studios in Newcastle with producer Sam Grant (Pigs x7) and nothing resembling a safety net. No demos. No polish. Just raw emotion and the kind of reckless energy that comes from having too much to say and not enough time to say it. “It’s the closest we’ve ever sounded to the practice room, slightly unhinged, on the brink of collapse, but somehow holding it together,” they say. You can hear it. The whole thing teeters between alternative rock, funk, post-punk and outright chaos, pulling from influences as varied as De Staat, Warmduscher, Opeth, Muse, Royal Blood, Danny Elfman and Radiohead. It shouldn’t work on paper, but in practice, it’s exactly what the moment demands.

‘Battleship Boomer’ kicks things off by turning migration policy into a twisted board game, complete with callous satire that’d make you laugh if it wasn’t so uncomfortably close to actual discourse. ‘In The Channel of a Hate Crime’ escalates from there, each riff building like rhetoric from politicians who’ve learned that fear sells. Then there’s ‘Sharks’, which disguises genuine tragedy in a frenetic, sea-sprayed anthem. Sometimes all you can do is laugh while sinking, and Roses in December have figured out how to make that sound like defiance rather than defeat.

The visual component hits just as hard. Viz Comics cartoonist Lee Healey created artwork featuring a wilted red rose, a sharp nod to Labour’s hollowed-out symbolism and Newcastle’s black-and-white heritage. There’s also a short film running parallel to the EP, filmed and edited by Lex Scurr from Scurr Films, that stretches the concept into a 21-minute anthology of dark absurdity. It moves from claustrophobic domestic skits to drone footage of industrial decay, landfills and burning forests, mirroring the lyrical escalation from political anger to planetary collapse. “The country feels absurd, so we decided to sound absurd,” the band adds. “You either cry or take the piss. We’re doing both.”

For a band formerly known as Crux, Roses in December have built serious momentum. They’ve earned support from Tom Robinson on BBC Radio 6 and Nicky Roberts on BBC Introducing, played Alt Festival as part of The Great Escape 2024 and A Stone’s Throw Festival, and sold out venues across Newcastle. Tracks like ‘Slaving Away’, ‘Radgie Gadgie’, and ‘Lost Souls’ proved they could balance fury with hooks. But Divided and Conquered feels different, more urgent, like they’ve stopped worrying about what anyone thinks and started caring only about what needs to be said.

The EP’s release was followed by a headline show at Three Tanners Bank on November 8th, where the material likely hits even harder live. There’s something about watching a band channel this much frustration in person that makes the studio version feel like the blueprint for something bigger.

What makes Divided and Conquered work isn’t just the anger, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the specificity. These aren’t vague political statements or generic protest songs. They’re targeted, messy, and brutally honest reflections of what it feels like to live in a country that’s convinced itself chaos is normal. Roses in December aren’t here to offer solutions. They’re here to hold up a mirror and make sure you can’t look away, even when what you’re seeing is uncomfortable. In a moment when apathy feels easier than engagement, that might be the most punk thing you can do.

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