The Red ChordFed Through the Teeth MachineReview

The Red Chord are the kind of band that the uneducated might pour scorn on as just another American deathcore act hammering out heaviness with haircuts. But the truth is that the Massachusetts quartet stand a couple of steps above that, and their fourth album is very fair testament to their quality. There’s too much variety and invention within their music to see them lumped in with the rabble-rousing shtick of many of their so-called peers.

Guy Kozowyk’s indecipherable roars emanate from the grottiest recesses of his guts but, delivered in such a fashion, the actual content is totally lost until the study of a lyric-covered inlay booklet. What can be said about his performance is that it is consistently brutal. So brutal, indeed, that it deserves a new word to accurately summarise its significant impact on the listener – after all, there are only so many times one can resort to “ferocious”, “inhuman” or this writer’s favourite, “merciless”. Kozowyk’s ability, and this album in general, warrants more.

The loss of second guitarist Mike Keller last year has resulted in a greater clarity in their sound, with the dozen songs here feeling sleeker and more dynamic than previous collections as a result. While the traditional method of increasing a band’s heaviness would be to add a guitar, none of The Red Chord’s extreme traits have been lost on this album. This indicates that four-piece have achieved their current state of musical muscularity via simply becoming better at a base songwriting level.

Take One Robot to Another and Embarrassment Legacy for absolute proof of this improvement. The group’s now sole guitarist, Mike ‘Gunface’ McKenzie, dances his fingers over his instrument at what seems to be the speed of light, before switching to a thunderous epic mode at will. Showcasing every technique in the book with verve, guile and – most importantly – passion, these riffs were born from both desire and necessity. The onus was on McKenzie to step up to the plate as lone axeman, and he’s gone and stamped his presence with a great level of authority.

Add the spacey, Isis-like interludes and you have an album that is as accomplished as it is fiercely contemporary, even if there isn’t quite the differentiation between tracks that could’ve made it a world beater. Dare to ridicule this band, however, and you’ll be on the sharp end of some well-honed hostility. Make no mistake about that.