This album is fantastic. Currently loving Darkest Part and Take Me Over. Red's one of those bands that I don't care if they ever change. I'm not going to get all snobby about them progressing as musicians: just keep making epic treadmill music.
After a week with this kick-ass album: Descent: Nothing really special as an intro, but it sets the tone for the rest of the album with those desolate strings Imposter: What a way to open the album! An absolutely colossal main riff - the drums are so fucking powerful. This is a riff I'm jealous Linkin Park has never thought of. Shadow and Soul: Red's best attempt at being Muse - especially with the soaring vocal melody Darkest Part: I don't get the hate - This is the Red formula near perfected. Although the bridge is kinda cringeworthy. That short acoustic moment before the final chorus is an eargasm though. Fight To Forget: Another monster of a song with a satisfying climax. Those rolling drums in the bridge are awesome. Of These Chains: Stunning, but short of the masterpiece "Pieces" was Falling Sky: Epic. Epic. Epic. Epic. EPIC. That masterclass string intro feels like something straight out of a classic superhero fight. Possibly the most climatic finale Red has EVER had. A song truly befitting for the apocalyptic tone the song is conveying. Forest: Beautiful - wish it was extended further, or was mixed with Descent for a truly great opening Yours Again: Like Darkest Part, this song epitomizes Red's softer rock tracks. Feels like a more mature Hold Me Now. What Keeps You Alive: Another solid take on aggressive Red. Gravity Lies: This song reminds me of Lies Greed Misery/Victimized with the way "LIES" is screamed over and over again. The vocal melody here in the verses is something completely different from the rest of the album. Take Me Over: As someone mentioned earlier, this is Red mimicking the sounds of In My Remains and/or I'll Be Gone. I'd call it the weakest song on the album. The Ever: Red takes their entire discography and makes a 4-minute anthology. The bridge is brilliant how they convey all the themes of their different albums and the samples in the intro are godly. The Part That's Holding On: This is the big cinematic finale. Reminds me a lot of if Red tried to make their own Powerless. Strings galore and soaring vocals here. Unfortunately though, I think The Ever would be better placed here. The Ascent: I was disappointed the final song on the track was an instrumental. With a title like The Ascent, it could have been legendary. It's basically an uplifting, The Descent Pt. II. Overall I still hold this album with super high regards. There's moments here you absolutely can't find anywhere else in rock music. It's beautiful, epic, and everything in-between. I DO however agree the album is a little too long for welcome, as a few of the tracks begin to mesh together. I'd get rid of Take Me Over, Combine The Part Thats Holding On with The Ascent somehow, and unfortunately get rid of Forest.
With the official release of the album tomorrow, I've been listening to RED's earlier albums as I usually do during the night before a new album...from what I've heard of the album so far, it's really giving me an I&I feel, which for some reason led me to go unearth this little gem from the early stages of the I&I ARG: [video=youtube;AyUbNTKcJr4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyUbNTKcJr4[/video] 466623623-263-46784628...feeling nostalgic anyone?? Almost 6.5 years since that ARG began...
I have now listened all the way through twice. The first listen was on the official stream on Facebook and, to be honest, I was too tired to really know what to think. I just finished listening to it again after getting it on iTunes and wow, it really is a great album! There isn't a single song that I wholly dislike. Rather, each song has some element that makes it enjoyable. My highlights as of now: Imposter, Shadow and Soul, Of These Chains, Falling Sky, What You Keep Alive, Gravity Lies, and The Ever. The rest are still quite good but didn't stand out to me as much. As for the instrumentals, all are good in their own right with Ascent being exceptionally good. Lastly, for those of you who have doubts about RED, give this album a chance. This is a MUCH better representation of what RED is really all about, as even many of the fans thought that their previous work, Release The Panic, just didn't have the RED vibe or feel, as it was truly a departure from their established sound. Even if you're not crazy about RED's hard rock sound, the overall orchestration and beautiful yet haunting string arrangements should please your ears.
I've given this album a fair amount of listens since the Spotify leak and I think I'm ready to place it in my rankings of RED albums: 1. Innocence & Instinct 2. of Beauty and Rage 3. End of Silence 4. Release The Panic 5. Until We Have Faces This album feels like the band is finally doing everything that they have had ambitions of. Shadow and Soul is a masterpiece for this particular genre of music. For the longest time I debated with myself of the best track that they have ever written (often times debating between Out From Under and Take It All Away), but this one is it for me. This song captures the essence of the band. The strings, the melodies, the screams, and that amazing outro. This song feels like it would make for an amazing closing track, but I love where it is placed anyways. Gets me hyped up for every listen. The other track that blew me away was Falling Sky. It began like a possible Release The Panic outtake and dove into a magnificant soundtrack-quality piece. The vocals on this track actually remind me of End of Silence where the band wasn't afraid to put it all out there without polishing up the sound. The chorus in my opinion is their best chrous since Shadows. I feel like RED explored what they wanted to become with UWHF and RTP, much in the same way that Linkin Park did with Living Things. The band more or less confirmed in Facebook Q&A's that the decision to return to strings in their sound was fan-based rather than a strict inward desire, but the energy in this record seems that this change rejuvenated them. If I'm being picky, I would say that the album is a bit too long. I would drop Take Me Over and Ascent to shorten the length without removing too much of the album's identity. I know everyone says that Take Me Over sounds a lot like In My Remains, but I too will be making that point. I feel that this is a weak song on the album that seems a bit out of place. I also think that turning Ascent into a shorter outro for Part That's Holding On (awesome song) would bring more meaning to this track. All in all, this album is more than I could've hoped for after Until We Have Faces and Release The Panic followed up perhaps my favorite record of all time, Innocence & Instinct. RED is back in their element and sounding better than ever.
I agree this album is very I&I-ish with dark themes and tones but at the same time there's definitely some RTP in there. The atmosphere is great, like their first two albums they put the extra few seconds of moody music in the starts of the songs to set things up. I can't wait for the graphic novel to arrive... In the CD booklet there's some funny symbols in the background, I haven't tried to figure anything out with them yet, but I hope they're something cool. I'm missing the old ARG fun. I haven't seen the Darkest Part music video yet, but it looks cool... Need better internet connection...