Red - End of Silence Review
by Dan Upton
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So, let's just get all of the band comparisons out of the way in advance. Red, a 5-piece from Tennessee, has at the least drawn comparisons to Tool, Chevelle, and Linkin Park; I'm going to add in bands like Breaking Benjamin and Crossfade. (I'm not really sure about the Tool comparison, but then again, just about any time I listen to a band who has been compared to Tool, it sounds like somebody was just trying to get a little cred.) To get straight to it, there's plenty of drop-tuned riffing akin to a lot of the stuff many of the above bands churn out, plenty of melody with big vocal hooks, and the occasional screaming. The frequent string and and electronic backdrops for texturing in particular draw the Linkin Park comparison, in particular the material from Hybrid Theory. For that matter, a lot of the solo vocals sound like they might as well have been sung by Linkin Park's vocalist. On the other hand, there are plenty of big vocal harmonies, and a few of the requisite screams (which, in this case, might as well have been done by Chevelle's vocalist). All of which is to say, this band's music practically screams "Play us on the radio!" Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. Songs like "Breathe Into Me," "Already Over," "Break Me Down," and "Hide" show off their knack for writing catchy, heavy-yet-melodic songs, and mellower songs like "Pieces" or "Already Over, Pt. 2" demonstrate an ability for writing ballads (Collective Soul would probably kill to have written one of those tunes). They're certainly a band which can, and probably will, do well in the current music scene, and if you like heavy modern rock you'll almost definitely enjoy this CD. It's just that there's nothing particularly new here to set them apart from the crowd, and so they may find themselves lost when the next MTV2 Rock trend comes along. Until then, or until they reinvent themselves, this is still a better-than-average disc to toss in and rock out to.
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Red - End of Silence
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