The Red Heroes - 'It Fills That Void For Me' review

The Red Heroes - 'It Fills That Void For Me' review

So, The Red Heroes from over in the States are putting an album out in September, and I got a lil' exclusive blast of the thing prior to release. Here's a lil' review of said album...

"So these guys play pop-punk in a very modern, Western style in the vein of bands like MAN OVERBOARD and THE WONDER YEARS, and despite being similarly and unashamedly saccharine both musically and lyrically (though there IS some pretty miserable subject matter), THE RED HEROES play in a more straight and direct fashion, with less of the flare and superfluity of such bands. However, such a statement shouldn't be perceived in a negative light; here we have twelve tracks (plus an acoustic version of one of the album tracks) that are bright and, though quite catchy on the first and second listen, have a surprisingly uncanny knack for sneaking into your subconscious, and popping up in your head on arbitrary subsequent occasions, especially on the vocal side, thanks to some really quite memorable vocal melodies in both verses and choruses, and some pretty sweet backing harmonies. It invariably strolls at a steady mid-tempo, but the varied song-structures, song-lengths, nice drum time-changes, and use of contrast between full drive and some quite lovely mellow, acoustic sections keep the whole thing interesting enough, and I must say, the bass on this is pretty sweet, jazzing it up with some awesome picking and licks that add a lot of life to the straight chord-work. Stand-out tracks for me on here are 'Letters to a Christian Nation' largely for the hooky drumwork, the rather amusing and snotty acoustic number 'Martha', and the wonderfully chorused 'Valentine's Day (Hannah)', but the key tune here has to be the second track, 'Untouchable'; killer bass, catchy melodies, and the most infectious chorus on the whole album, and as if that weren't enough, there's an acoustic version right at the end that is just beautiful, and whoever Meagan Smith is, she has a wonderful voice that harmonises with the male lead perfectly, and her additional lines are a real treat. A consistent release that fuses the tempo and drive of old-school DIVIT and the melody and pop sensibilities of THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS and THE ACADEMY IS with the modern pop-punk stylings of MAN OVERBOARD; a pretty promising prospect."

You can find The Red Heroes in the following places:

http://theredheroes.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/theRedHeroes

http://www.youtube.com/theRedHeroes

http://www.twitter.com/theRedHeroes

Cheers! :D

xox