Review Summary: Still Red, just minus it all.
To start this review of
Rated R with an anecdote, I was organizing my music collection among my PC, Mac, and iPhone recently when I realized that I had completely forgotten that Red's album
Gone even existed, so I synced it to my phone and took a listen on my commute. I recall that I did not like the album much when it came out, but I really enjoyed coming back to it with fresh ears. It dawned on me - Red is Red, for better or worse, and theirs is a sound that can get so familiar that it fades to static with repeat listens.
Still, it's a static that I enjoy, and having not spun much of their catalog recently before going into
Rated R certainly helps my appreciation of it. The title might indicate something provocative, but it rings as hollow as that time a
Zelda game got slapped with a "Teen" rating. Indeed, Red is Red. For better or worse.
If there is one thing unique to
Rated R, it is a renewed focus on the technicality of the riffs and beats. That is nowhere more evident than on opener "Surrogates," which crashes out of the gate with a slick riff and thick, sawtooth synth line as Michael Barnes launches a career-best screaming performance. There are great riffs all throughout the album, and only once - in the track "The Suffering" - does Red fall back on their staple dissonant, chromatic power chord walk. A lineup change with Brian Medeiros on drums injects some life into the "Red sound," and album highlight "Cold World" demonstrates that best. The drum work on this track is deliciously excessive, pulling the slower melody and chord progression with a manic urgency that always hints at a resolution we never get until the abrupt ending. It's an excellent single that represents Red at their very best, and it dovetails nicely into "Tell Me How To Say Goodbye," which might be Red's best ballad to date. Starting with a hauntingly delicate acoustic guitar, then bringing in soft synths, strings, and female backing vocals, it upends expectation by introducing a hip-hop beat in the initial chorus before the full band rounds out the mix by the second chorus.
However, there is little else to say about the album. Besides the truly great tracks of "Surrogates," "Cold World," and "Tell Me How to Say Goodbye," there is little that stands out about any other song. There's an interesting lead guitar bit in the opening of "The Suffering," and a couple of cool rhythmic sections of closer "Emergency," but otherwise
Rated R is basically 11 solid Red singles in album form. Every song is great Spotify playlist fodder, but as an album, it's slightly less than the sum of its parts. I get it - that's the industry we're in. But somehow, 11 tracks, the shortest of which is 3:01 and the longest of which is 3:49, seems awfully safe for a band who thought it prudent to print "Rated R" on the front of the album. Where is the pretentious melodrama that made
Of Beauty and Rage so charming? Like a predictable sequel that includes the requisite number of hard profanities to get a stricter content rating,
Rated R feels like an oddly by-the-numbers release with enough technical improvements to earn some legit metal street cred.
Still, it's quite a good collection of Red tracks, and for the listener looking for some solid, string-and-synth-driven nu-metal tracks to jam to, you could do far worse than
Rated R. I just hope the ambition and drama on the next Red release doesn't feel quite so restricted.
