Good song, Evening Hate was a little better though

Song is good... wish they would announce the new album though

Song sucks, I think this record will fail hard... The Evening Hate had a good chorus and breakdown at least. The main riff is so uninspired, it hurts

Solid track but why does the production suck so bad

Production is indeed terrible. Why is it so hard for bands to find mixes that aren't shit these days? Seems like I end up complaining about the mix on over half the albums that I listen to.

Sounds like Red 🤗

Love these fellas, love this song, life is good.

Mildly enjoy these chaps, mildly enjoy this song, life is mildly enjoyable.

mediocre band releases mediocre song

Good song. Way above mediocre band, but they have had a few mediocre releases.

what makes them above mediocre

literally nothing

Their first two albums and beauty and rage are far above mediocre. The fact that innocence and instinct has a 3.8 average, was ranked #26 best album 2009 (whatever that means) and multiple 4.0-5.0 staff reviews.. seems to me most people would disagree that "literally nothing" about them is above mediocre but okay.

oh yeah I forgot sput averages are the ultimate indicator of quality

Oh yea I forgot some jackass posting a random comment that goes against an aggregated opinion of an adequate sample size is relevant in any way, ever.

holy shit you have the worst 5s I have ever seen

Damnit I was really hoping for your approval.

as your father I am very disappointed in you, son

"holy shit you have the worst 5s I have ever seen"

Pretty shit deflect to a pretty valid point.

hmmm calling me a jackass was a good point agreed

Right let's focus on that one word rather than the entire rest of the comment lol

the main point of the comment I was replying to was the insult so yea

but either way his point is dumb. it boils down to "if you don't like something you're wrong because other people like it". it makes as much sense as saying that album sales/streams are an objective indicator of quality.

Literally your main point is it's bad because YOU don't like it, lmfao.

First you say they are mediocre then you ask for evidence that proves contrary to your statement. I'm sorry but that's not how debates work to begin with, why don't YOU prove to us that this band is mediocre? Secondly, according to browsers of this website, a place that seems to generally attract people with knowledge around this and similar genres, they have released multiple albums well above "mediocre" status, of which their best albums have some universal praise.

but it's not good so he's ok

sput discourse 'erryone

I guess if you failed at reading comprehension, then sure, that's my main point.

I called this mediocre band mediocre because in my opinion they are mediocre. you responded to that saying they aren't so I asked you why.

for the record, I like Innocence & Instinct and find most of the rest of their stuff completely inoffensive if unoriginal and uncreative. I called it mediocre, not bad.

They have consistently produced very passionate music and their songwriting has always been relevant and relatable (at least for me). Michael Barnes is an incredible talent as far as vocals are concerned, I wouldn't necessarily consider the musicianship extraordinary but they've always had a unique sound with classical overtones and dramatic synths found in a lot of their songs. They have a pianist and a percussionist in their band ffs.

As far as this alt-metal sound goes, Red is easily one of my favorites. Something like Skillet is more along the lines of mediocre, THAT is unoriginal and uncreative music.

Red has some hits and misses but I don't think I'd consider any of their albums as phoning it in. If anything they get lost in their creativity and forget what made them good to begin with.

^^Dream gets it. For mainstream rock, Red is one of the best around. Incredible vocals, epic melodies, a unique aesthetic, and a willingness to try new things.

vocals are a standout quality of this band, but outside of that they pretty much stick to the formula of "Breaking Benjamin with strings".

Granted I lost track of this group years ago, but the only time I really felt them experimenting post I&I was release the panic and that's pretty consistently regarded as their weakest. Of Beauty sounded a bit like a retread to me.

A retread is underselling it a bit. It was a return to their original sound, sure, but it was their sound amplified to new heights. They had never written something as cinematic as Falling Sky or a heavy as What You Keep Alive before. Not to mention they took a stab at a concept record, of sorts.

Of Beauty was a lot darker with almost a gothic theme to it. You could call it a retread but I'd call it original Red with a twist, which I quite enjoyed as it's definitely my second favorite release from them.

As far as Breaking Benjamin goes, you know that's a two way street as Red's original (and better) guitarist is now BB's guitarist not to mention Red's band members have been credited for writing a bunch of BB's songs. Especially on Dear Agony they wrote quite a few IIRC.

Anyways I won't sit here and pretend Red is at the forefront of creativity but they write very catchy hooks and I very much enjoy the atmosphere and tone they bring to their sound which most mainstream rock like this completely lacks.

i like this

"Solid track but why does the production suck so bad"

I think this album was crowdfunded or something? idk i read something about it somewhere before they dropped Evening Hate

they dropped their label and went independent yeah

Well, they were supposed to still be working with Rob Graves despite that... so it definitely is weird that the production on this is a little off

grabs popcorn due to Hell and Dream's fight

I thought production on evening hate was far worse than this one, so maybe they already figuring it out

their previous Joe Rickard did the mixing so I think that’s where they went wrong

This is such a 00's alternative radio rock song lol

Regardless, the production on both new songs still sound better than the production on Release the Panic

I can agree on that yes

The "independant" argument doesn't mean a lot though.
I'm in a local band and the production sounds better than this lol

Yeah, being independent should do nothing for your mixes, either you put money and effort into it or you don't... @peartnoy I still need to check your music I'm sorry

Hey no worries dude haha. It does fit your overall tastes in music pretty well so I honestly think you'd like it at least a little bit

The vocals and the strings are on point, as always, but the guitar kind of ruins it for me. It sounds like it's directly lifted from the cutting floor of Until We Have Faces.

If only Red made some engaging riffs... Their music could really be transcended if they had better instrumentation behind the strings