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THE RED CHORD ‘Clients’ Metal Blade(2005)
For many people the release of "Clients", the second studio album of the US outfit The Red Chord, was highly anticipated. These five musicians from Massachusetts received quite a few accolades from the music press when they released their debut album "Fused Together in Revolving Doors" back in 2002 - and according to the vast majority of their fans, the feedback was quite justified. Combining the intensity of grindcore, with the brutality of Death Metal and the pure energy of hardcore, the members of The Red Chord managed to sell more than 25.000 CDs and travelled to more than fourteen countries - not bad for a band that has only just released its first ever album.
After such a success, things started happening for them. Interviews were featured in important music magazines like Terrorizer, Metal Hammer and Revolver, and also quite a few labels have shown their interest in signing the band. The one that has offered them the best contract, though, was the German Label Metal Blade who, in late 2004, welcomed the members of The Red Chord to their quite extended music family. Three years after their first "assault", and with a new drummer (Brad Fickeisen) behind the drums, the band started working on their second studio album which is entitled "Clients".
I guess that I can consider myself to be quite lucky for not having listened to the band's debut release, because the majority of my fellow-journalists that have already posted their reviews on the net claim to be very disappointed with it. With a clear head and no other interference from the outside environment (thanks to my earphones), I started listening to the band's eleven new compositions, and I pretty soon came across the first big obstacle. I assume it was for copy-protection reasons that Metal Blade decided to send us an eleven-track promo divided into ninety-eight parts. That wouldn't have been a problem, if the songs were better structured and did not fall one on top of the other, and also if the label had indicated at the back of the promo which of the 98 parts belong to which songs. I ended up spending most of my time trying to separate the songs - and believe me, that's not the best way of getting introduced to a band's latest release.
That "small" problem aside, I started concentrating on the large number of guitar riffs, brutal screams and complicated drum parts that were unveiled before my very ears. Listening to the first two songs of the album is enough to make you realise the diversity of the compositions that are featured on "Clients". The opening track "Fixation on Plastics" is a straight-forward extreme Death Metal delirium with fast double-bass drums and guttural screams, the intensity of which is capable of causing permanent damage to your eardrums. The following track, "Lay the Trap", is quite a laid back typical US metalcore composition which doesn't hold any real surprises. If that were to be the case with the following tracks on this album, I would accept "Clients" as an average release and probably would have appreciated it more.
Unfortunately, the band had other plans. In their attempt to become more technical and create something unusual, the members of The Red Chord have managed to make the majority of the remaining compositions of the album badly structured; these also lack character and musical orientation. I tried really hard to concentrate on all compositions, but it didn't take long before I lost interest in the album. On the positive side of things, Zeuss (Hatebreed/Shadows Fall) deserves to be given much credit for giving "Clients" a very good production and making the process of listening to it much more bearable.
Even now that I am about to rate "Clients", I still haven't decided the extent to which I dislike this album. I understand, of course, that there could me some people that will find this release to be of great interest, so I will once again urge you to listen to it and decide for yourselves. As for me...
**½
Review by John Stefanis
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