I first happened on Red through their song “Start Again.” I liked it enough that I decided they needed further investigation and bought the album, Innocence and Instinct. After listening to it for a week or two, I decided I had to find out who these guys were — this was some fairly intense orchestral metal.
End of Silence (2006) is Red’s first release, and while the music is good, it feels as though they hadn’t quite found their voice — they were still reaching for something. There are lurches when they’re trying something that they’ve not quite mastered, and lead singer Mike Barnes has a tendency to overwork the lyrics, but when it works, as in “Let Go,” it’s riveting. “Already Over” and “Break Me Down” are strong indicators of things to come. The metal’s there, the strings are there ( it’s wonderfully textured music, layers and layers of sound over which float some pretty intense vocals from Barnes), but it hasn’t yet arrived — it’s sometimes too much orchestral, not enough metal, and they haven’t yet found their vocabulary. Still, compared to other debut albums I’ve heard, it’s a couple steps along.
Innocence and Instinct came out three years later, and the increasing focus and the rapidly developing musicianship are right up front. They’re not Linkin Park yet (and I feel justified in making that comparison because they admit of Linkin Park as an influence, and it shows), but there’s no reason they have to be: they are becoming themselves. Innocence and Instinct is a more polished effort, not in terms of production, which is well-done on both releases, but in terms of concept and performance. They are close to seamless on this one, and, like Linkin Park, don’t pay too much attention to genre boundaries. “Mystery of You” is hard metal/electronica, while the first track, “Fight Inside,” might have been done by Nickelback (give or take the country twang). And of course there’s “Start Again,” still in my opinion one of the strongest songs in the collection, even if I find it unclassifiable. And it’s a strong collection.
One thing I found interesting is that Red bills itself as a “Christian” band. Now, if you’re like me (or most people), that kind of definition is going to call up a certain image — we all have our preconceptions. OK — got that picture of a “Christian rock band” firmly in mind? Good — get rid of it. Red doesn’t seem to be locked into any overt “message.” They’re giving us strong, intense songs, and there’s always an interlocutor: these are, to a certain extent, conversations, or at least, one side of them. Whether the other party is Christ, the Devil, or a lover is open to interpretation. They’re personal and often painfully moving. The core songwriting team has been Jasen Rauch, Rob Graves, and Jason MacArthur, with assists from Anthony Armstrong and others, and they’ve reached a space that one seldom finds in popular music. It’s not easy music. The soundscape is pretty consistent, but not rigid, and often quite complex: as I like to say, “they make interesting sounds.” And they have Barnes’ voice, which has the intensity, the passion, the raw edge to drive any song. It’s tough stuff.
I suspect that I’m not so different from others when it comes to music: I have my favorites, and among those favorites there are perhaps a very few collections that I can listen to and be caught up in every song. These two albums have made it into that select group: they command that kind of engagement. And that’s probably what it is: this is passionate music, flat-out, wide open, music that soars and reaches toward something we can’t really touch. I’m waiting to see where they go next.
Red is Mike Barnes, vocals, piano; Jasen Rauch, guitar; Anthony Armstrong, guitar; Randy Armstrong, bass, piano; and (on End of Silence) Hayden Lamb, drums.
- Robert M. Tilendis
(Provident Label Group [Sony BMG Music Entertainment], 2006, and Essential Records [Sony Music Entertainment], 2009)
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