Red Rocks Your Faces Off

Until We Have Faces, the third release by Hard Rock band Red, is the follow up to their Grammy Award Nominated and Dove Award Winning Best Rock Album (Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album for the Grammy's) Innocence and Instinct. It is a fine follow up, and they seem to have gone harder this time, even including a few thrash growls here and there, though their trademark clean vocals still rule. I'm not surprised that they chose to go harder this time. After Pillar abandoned the Rap-Core style that I was familiar with (I was introduced them during Fireproof) and basically copied Red for Confessions, even to the point of using Red's producer, it was a foregone conclusion that Red would reinvent itself.

The album is an almost non stop adrenaline rush. Wisely though there are two rest stops. Red has always been know for awesome ballads and here there are two. Not Alone, which is the string heavy sixth track, could almost be interpreted as a modern worship song, but it doesn't quite fit that mold. It really is a plea from Father God for the Prodigal to return, no matter what he has done, that God still loves them.

And I will be your hope
When you feel like it’s over
And I will pick you up
When your whole world shatters
And when you’re finally in my arms
You’ll look up and see, love has a face

Since I just love symphonic rock, this is my favorite cut on the Album. It is my opinion that most rock music would be greatly improved if they would incorporate strings into the mix somehow, or horns. By way of example check out Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, The Annie Moses Band, Skillet, and the O.C. Supertones. The album finishes slow, with the regular ballad The Best is Yet to Come and the haunting Hymn for the Missing.

In my opinion this is the best RED yet, even better than innocence and instinct, which is hard to imagine. I give this release a full 5 Emeralds making it a certainty that it will get into the Final List of Nominees next year when the 2011 Platinum Vinyl Awards are handed out. As they always say, Red will draw attention every time.