Album Of The Week: RED's 'Until We Have Faces' No. 1 On iTunes Rock Chart

Red makes fierce hard rock, with a silver lining

The guys of hard rock band RED drop their new album, “Until We Have Faces,” Tuesday, Feb. 1, and the buzz is heavy. In fact, the album just hit No. 1 on the iTunes Rock Chart, for all genres of rock.

The follow-up to their Grammy-nominated “End of Silence” and “Innocence & Instinct” albums, the new album, produced by Rob Graves, pulls no punches and shows a much heavier, more mature Red.

RED first got together in Nashville in the mid-2000s. After taking a few years to write and record a demo, the band generated enough fans and online hype to get label interest and inked to Sony.

At the heart of RED’s music is a deep, guttural faith. Band members are Christians, but it’s hard to tell from the heavy, fierce tracks, packed with lurching riffs and angst-fueled vocals.

Themes are universal: fear, anger, loneliness.

"Until We Have Faces" touches on "finding your identity." Still, the guys keep it ambiguous.

“Keeping certain things ambiguous is always a priority for us,” guitarist Jasen Rauch said, chatting with Audio Ink Radio. “Not that we want to mask what we are talking about, but we want the songs to allow room for growth in the listener.

“People come up to us and say our song ‘Pieces’ got them out of depression or stopped them from killing themselves. But then, someone else will say they wanted that song played at their wedding. Those are two very different perspectives.”

In the end, camp RED --- which includes Rauch, Michael Barnes (vocals) and brothers Randy (bass, piano) and Anthony (guitar) Armstrong --- is all about staying connected with the fans.

“Being close to our fans is something we always wanted,” Rauch said.

Here's a teaser for the new album, via Youtube: