Review Summary: Red makes a strong comeback thanks to Rob Graves and strong theatrical elements.
In 2015, Red returned to form with Of Beauty & Rage, one of the band’s best works to date and a masterpiece of a record that is the perfect culmination of every RED album wrapped in one hour-long epic. The album helped win back many fans who had left after the controversial Release the Panic, and gain new fans with an intensely dramatic and theatrical sound built around passionate vocals and drop tuned guitars and violins. The album is everything a fan has ever wanted from RED and more, with heavy, thrilling breakdowns, and soft, chilling ballads, the album is the perfect soundtrack to a movie. The album’s marketing was genius and featured a tie-in comic book as well as a story told in their live shows, with each member of the band portraying characters fitting the story of the album. Another huge upside to this album is the return of Rob Graves, the bands’ producer who not only has his best production performance on the record, but writing credits on every song and his touch was severely missing on Release the Panic, an album that didn’t feel like RED because he didn’t produce it, despite the fact that he isn’t a member of RED.
Of Beauty and Rage opens with “Descent”, an eerie orchestra intro that sets the dramatic and theatrical tone for the album. It's quick and epic intro slowly builds into “Imposter”, which combines the cinematic orchestra with RED’s signature heavy guitars and screams. The song is a breath of fresh air after the disaster known as Release the Panic, and brings back their sound from Innocence & Instinct with more orchestral arrangements. The song has a fast breakdown which with eerie breaks and the song truly feels like the opening scene of a movie.
After a cinematic outro, we have “Shadow & Soul”, which is one of my favorite RED songs of all time with a very menacing tone and an incredible vocal performance from Mike Barnes that goes down as one of his best on record. The song has a heavy, low-tuned riff and urgent-sounding violins throughout. The overlapped screams add to the intensity and it’s an experience of a song to say the least. The entire song feels like an epic battle scene in a movie as it fades into a slow emotional orchestral arrangement as the so called “battle” ends with incredible high notes from Mike Barnes with an insanely emotional delivery and piano outro.
Flowing nicely from the previous track we have “Darkest Part”, the lead single of the album, which has a menacing build into one of RED’s best choruses and more emotional vocals from Barnes. The song’s growing intensity adds to the album’s dramatic sound and the song is impossible not to sing along to. It’s also worth mentioning the song has my favorite music video of all time, which connects the cinematic feel of the album to the visuals, as the album itself matches perfectly with the details in the video.
We then have “Fight To Forget”, which opens with a heavy, low-tuned guitar riff and intense production. The song has a very epic feel overall and maintains the pace of the previous tracks and has one of the best bridges on the album. The song features gripping, growingly intense screams and ends having built up to be super heavy and it’s impossible to not headbang to this track.
In a perfectly-timed change of pace, we have the piano ballad “Of These Chains”. The song features a piano driven sound and the orchestra adds to the effect that it sounds like it could be in the sad part of a movie. The song has a very dramatic and dynamic feel that sounds like it belongs in Narnia and while it doesn’t build into much, it brings just enough of a breather while still matching the intense pace, before going into the fast, theatrical masterpiece known as “Falling Sky.”
“Falling Sky” is an aggressive, yet at times tame, track with another great build and dynamic vocals. The urgent lyrics add to the feel that something dangerous is approaching, as the song builds into a stunning, climatic finish with chaotic drum fills and slowing guitars before fading out into an somber orchestral arrangement known as “The Forest”.
“The Forest”, in a way, feels like it’s the connecting bridge between films, as it fades into “Yours Again”, which feels very reminiscent of End of SIlence, and despite still being a great song, it’s placement in the tracklisting and more slightly more radio friendly sound make it not stand out as much as other songs on the record. The song features choppy guitars and builds into a sing-along chorus and the most Christian lyrics on the album, with the subject matter of someone returning and rededicating their life to Christ after time away with a desperate sense of relief.
“What You Keep Alive” brings back the intensity, with violins that sound almost like a warning, before going into the heaviest guitar riff on the album. Dynamic vocals showcasing a wide range and growingly intense guitars add to the feeling of urgency, the song sounds like it’s from a villains perspective, or, in this case, sin tempting someone into keeping it alive and taking hold of one’s life. The bridge has overlapped vocal lines before going into one of the best breakdowns of RED’s career and sudden changes of sound and tempo. It’s another experience of a song and a standout on the album.
“Gravity Lies’ is impossible to not bang your head to, with it’s heavy screamed refrain “LIES”, that just makes you want to scream along with them. A soaring chorus leads into more intense riffage and a somber verse before going on later into a heavy, string bending breakdown before dropping out to just acoustic guitars and violins. The part has emotional vocals and feels like the dramatic twist of events in a final battle, before coming back in with a menacing scream as the character in the story conquers it’s depression and suicide that was alluded to earlier on.
“Take Me Over” feels extremely out of place on the album with a completely radio friendly sound and electronic drive and melody that feels ripped from the song “In My Remains” by Linkin Park. Actually it’s literally the same chord progression and melody as that song. Putting aside the songs' unoriginality, it’s still a solid track that doesn't quite fit the album and sticks out because of that. While it does provide a nice change of pace, it feels like it doesn’t belong on this record and doesn’t stick out in a good way.
“The Ever” brings back the theatrical feel of the rest of the album, but opens with some ear piercing glitched electronics that definitely should have been lower in the mix. The song has a slower pace and building guitars, but by this point in the record it tends to start dragging out a very long album. The song also namedrops the album title a few times in the bridge. Another cinematic interlude goes into the closing track, “Part That’s Holding on”.
The song is another slower pace track that, while you want an album like this to go out on a heavy note, is still a very satisfying track with a very passionate and emotional vocal performance from Barnes. The song appropriately feels like the aftermath and ending of a movie and provides a satisfyingly emotional ending to a journey of an album. Despite being about the tragic feeling of holding onto someone you have lost, the song ironically has an uplifting feel before going into the dramatic ending instrumental track “Ascent”, which almost feels like the end credits scene of a movie. It’s a nice touch and it adds to the cinematic feel of the album.
Of Beauty & Rage is a cinematic masterpiece of an album. It is an amazing return to form that really blows you away if you give it the chance. It achieves its goal perfectly. Rob Graves did an outstanding job on the production of this album, proving his importance to RED’s sound, and Mike Barnes cowriting many of the tracks makes the album feel authentic with every word that is sung (or screamed). Clocking in at exactly a 1 hour runtime, Of Beauty & Rage is a long album by most standards and continually keeps the listener engaged till the very end. While the album isn’t without faults (e.g. the out of place and unoriginal “Take Me Over”, or the occasional moments where the orchestral elements seemed slightly overproduced), it is an incredible feat from a band that many had written off and while this album is growingly appreciated now, I feel like it has always been unappreciated and it never really got the attention the album truly deserves. Of Beauty & Rage is the perfect culmination of what many longtime RED fans been imagining for years finally come to life and it is truly an experience to listen to.
Rating: 4.6/5
Favorite tracks: “Gravity Lies”, “Shadow and Soul”, “Falling Sky”, and “What You Keep Alive”
Least Favorites: “Take Me Over”, “The Ever”, “Imposter” (No bad songs on this record however)
