Hard Rock: Red's End of Silence

The press release accompanying Red’s End of Silence cites Linkin Park, Chevelle, and Muse as influential on the band’s sound. This is avoiding the obvious: Evanescence. Ever since being burned by Evanescence rejecting the idea that they are a Christian band, it would seem that the Christian music industry has wanted to find the next Evanescence—albeit one that would remain outright Christian. Red could be that band, although maybe the press release didn’t want to suggest that in order to avoid associating the band with any hint of a turn tail future.

Hard rock guitars, hooks that borrow a groove from industrial music (along with effects), sweeping orchestrations supplied by keyboard, thoroughly smashing drumming, melodic vocals that could just as easily become screaming—these are the many keys in Red’s sound, and they certainly beg the Evanescence comparison. Except, of course, if you have trouble hearing this considering that lead vocalist Mike Barnes is of a different gender than Amy Lee.

If I sound negative about Red having this similarity to Evanescence, I’m not. The album produced by Rob Graves and released on Essential is more hard rocking than anything they’ve put out before this, and Red is a welcome sight in the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) mainstream where things so quickly get pop-ified. End of Silence fills the spot the 38th Parallel left vacant when they broke up—a screaming vocal and guitar that gets attention.

What I’m disappointed about is that the Red release opens CCM up to the charge that they’re “Johnny come lately” again. Evanescence made their big splash with their 2003 release, Fallen; three years later now Red can tap into that. . .old market. Things move fast, but not in CCM. Same thing happened with Relient K who is obviously vamping on Blink 182. It’s like CCM can only find bands of kids who grew up listening to something and are finally following in those footsteps a few years too late. CCM constantly sounds like mainstream radio from a five years ago.

Again, Red may have kicked off this diatribe, but believe me when I say that the Red disc will spin in my office much more often than some things I hear coming from CCM. If you want to ignore all of the industry commentary and just need a pull quote on Red, here it is:

Red’s End of Silence adds muscle-flexing tension to the struggle of faith through vein-popping vocals, plaintive keyboard parts interrupted by noise-fuzz guitars, effects coming like voices that try to interfere with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and percussion that leads you to punch the sky. Kids in the Way don’t have the musicianship, Thousand Foot Krutch don’t have the song, and there’s a freshness that Kutless hasn’t kept pursuing. Red sky at night, listeners’ delight.

By the way, I applaud Essential Records (Provident Label Group) for releasing Red and Day of Fire discs on June 6. What could be known as the “unholy release date,” June 6, 2006 (6/6/06) has been chosen by some labels as a release date in an attempt to market dangerous rebellion, tempting a devilish image, or just as a twisted ploy. Confident that the day, date, and number cannot defeat those in Christ, I am glad that Essential didn’t choose to avoid June 6. As the Pixies said in “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “If the devil is 6, then God is 7.” Christ will always have one up on Satan.

Thank you to Red and Essential Records for the review copy.