Review Summary: A successful return to roots and not much else.
After three albums with relatively the same formula, it was understandable that a band like Red would try to shake things up. Taking out most of the strings out of the Breaking-Benjamin-with-strings resulted in ‘’Release The Panic’’, an unfocused, poorly written and produced mess. You can’t just take out what people recognise and love about your band and not replace it with something else. And even the best songs were borderline unlistenable due to the piss-poor production by Howard Benson (‘’If We Only’’, ‘’Glass House’’). It was so clearly a poor decision that the band decided to remediate to the situation with ‘’Recalibrated’’, where half the songs were redone with added strings. The biggest problem remained, most of the songs were not good to begin with. After getting the producer of their first three albums back (Rob Graves), Red return to their roots, for better or for worse.
I’m not going to lie, hearing the beloved Red sound again really is a nice feeling. The mix between heavy riffs, slow atmospheric pace, complex string arrangements and Micheal Barnes’ angry and emotive vocals works as well as it used to. This is shown right-off-the-bat with opener ‘’Imposter’’, where Red clearly try to recapture the success of singles like ‘’Breathe Into Me’’ and ‘’Feed The Machine’’, with moderate success. However, the next track, ‘’Shadow and Soul’’, is the album’s first and biggest highlight. Red always had success when exploring with bigger and more elaborate song structures, and this song is no exception. Melding the heavy nature of a song like ‘’Let Go’’ and the progressive nature of a song like ‘’Take it All Away’’, it’s a dark, epic and emotionally powerful journey.
Sadly, most of the album doesn’t seem to even attempt to reach the same heights. It seems as if the band wanted to completely go back to their roots with nothing else in mind. Because of this, some songs really feel safe (‘’Imposter’’) and even uninspired (‘’Yours Again’’). There is a reason why the band tried (and failed at) something different after ‘’Until We Have Faces’’. It felt like the band had used their formula ad nauseam and the end felt near. Just because more time has passed since then doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly okay to just repeat the same material. Sure, the tone is a tad bit darker, but overall you could very well call this album ‘’Until We Have the End of Silence, Innocence and Instinct’’.
Don’t get me wrong, I would put this just above ‘’Until We Have Faces’’ mainly because its second half doesn’t have as big of a dip in quality. Apart from ‘’Shadow and Soul’’, ‘’Darkest Part’’, ‘’Falling Sky’’ and ‘’Gravity Lies’’ are also inspired, dark and memorable tracks. And even the most boring songs (most of them being the softer and poppier ones) are still perfectly listenable tracks worthy of a couple listens (especially ‘’The Ever’’). Michael Barnes’ vocals need to be commended too, with a voice as affecting and powerful as it always was.
This album troubles me a little. I have always been an advocate of trying new stuff before staying in your comfort zone, yet this almost makes me think the opposite. Red are obviously good at what they do, but I ask myself how long are they going to get away with essentially repeating the same stuff over and over again. In the meantime, Red fans will be more than pleased with this release, and in the end that’s the most important thing.
