by Mick Reed (Tha Sound)
Named for the Edger Allen Poe story, about an aristocrat whose party is crashed by personification of disease who proceeds to murder him and all of his guests, the DC area punk/thrash crossover riff blender, Red Death have rolled up on your front door to completely wreck your too-cute-for-Instragram holiday party with their third LP, Sickness Divine, out this December on Century Media. Red Death has been around for a minute, slowly gaining momentum on the metal/hardcore circuit, and garnering favorable comparisons to the punk band whom they most resemble, Power Trip. Still, they haven’t quite found their on-ramp to the belt-way of mainline alternative rock coverage. That is until now. Sickness Divine seems to be what they needed to buoy onto the radar of rock fans, gaining fawning coverage from Stereogum and other high profile indie blogs. As positive as this attention has been, though, it’s frankly a little subdued given how hard Sickness Divine rocks!
I’ve seen Red Death about four or five times as they’ve come through Chicago (including twice with Power Trip). Each time their performance seems tighter, more aggressive, and perceptibly confident. They’re a hard-touring band whose cash of road experience has thankfully translated into a sturdy sense of technique and understanding of themselves as songwriters. As a result, the arrangements on this latest album are, for want of a more suitable classification, freaking sick. “Sword Without a Sheath” kicks off with a 0 to 60, cross-county chopper-riding beat coupled with a chain-wielding fast-fisted upper-cutting riff that clocks you cold within the first ten seconds, and leaves you off-balance when the rollicking slide of the next wave of guitar-shredding hits. If Metallica had heard a thrasher like this in 1983, they probably would have packed it in right then and there. Speaking of Metallica, the title track actually references the lightening riders in their more subdued moments with an acoustic opener, which slowly draws back the curtain on a vista of twisted metal and wildly burning open flames, soundtracked by deep Cro-Mags-esque concrete cracking groove and a prowling beat, that periodically pounces on the listener just when they’re most feeling the vibe.
Follow up “Face the Pain” takes us back to thrash’s roots in amphetamine fueled speed metal, with a dark street-savvy edge, somewhat reminiscent of the nightcrawling Midnight. There is nuance amongst the nefarious breakdowns and beat-‘em-ups as well, such as the mockingly adroit, power metal, harpsichord interlude of “The Anvil’s Ring,” which falls somewhere between the intro to a Manowar ballad and a graduation hymn, and soulful the groove metal opener to the DRI-esque face cleaving, pit ripper “(Refuse to Be) Bound by Chains.” There is even a taste of bitter melo-death residue in the stomp and slash closer “Exhalation of Decay.” There is not a minute of Sickness Divine that doesn’t give you a reason to bang your head in righteous glee like the metal maniac you were born to be.
Red Death’s third album is a high watermark for the band, and crossover thrash generally in 2019. They’re a band that continues to flirt with iconoclasm as they define their own identity amongst a growing number of phenomenally talented punk bands, who arm the angry and willful approach of hardcore with the ferocious sonic implements of destruction forged by our metal forefathers. I think a lot of us knew this Sickness Divine was going to be a memorable dance with death when it was announced, but I don’t think we were prepared for how overwhelming this danse macabre would actually be.