| CD REVIEW Red Burns Black |
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Band: Red Burns Black RBB is a Reading (Berkshire, UK) based Hard Rock quintet which somehow pulled off the remarkable feat of playing their debut gig in front of 400 people in the Nokia “Rock Up ‘N’ Play”tentat the renowned Reading Festival…only three months after being together! In fact, so popular was that performance, that the band was invited back to headline on the final night of the festival! Formed in April 2006, lead singer (and occasional keyboardist) Sam Counterman, guitarists Lewis Collins and Gareth Stapleton (the latter also providing backing vocals), bassist/ backing singer Shaun Wilson, and drummer David Taylor, the band claims to use influences from Guns ‘n’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, Kings Of Leon, and Metallica in the making of their music, which they themselves describe as “…at the same time undebiably modern, raw and relevant…for fans of Velvet Revolver, Guns And Roses, and Audioslave…”! Only 6 months in their existence, the band was scouted at a London venue on the strength of an early demo recording of their track “Lady”, with a management contract as result. Gigs now came in more frequently, including stints at The Marqueein London, The Square in Harlow, an appearance at the Chelmford Festival, and a series of gigs (4 in 48 hours) at Bracknell’s local venue The Wilde Theatre. February and March of 2007 saw the quintet in a studio to record the 6 tracks of their self-titled official debut demo, and in September/ October of the same year they went back to re-record the tracks “Lady” and “Rip You Up” for a self-financed CD-single release. Following the band’s overcoming of all their opposition in an online poll, the band also got that single played on the Radio 1 Unsigned Show program. 2008 saw the band’s live activities continue with festival appearances at such events as Offset Festival, Hot Air Baloon (in Northampton and Essex), Kite Festival, and continuous touring throughout the South-England club circuit. The band’s ascend into Rock stardom did not go unnoticed by the press…in fact they were part of increasing the band’s popularity by publications in such Berkshire weeklies as The Reading Chronicle, Bracknell News and Wessex Features. Additionally the band also got airplay on BBC Berkshire Radio, Essex based Phoenix FM, Guildford based Radio Lion, and even Total Rock FM. RBB entered the selections for the Surface Unsigned Festival, and ended up in the regional semi-finals getting such comments as “This Reading five-piece wielded a Rock ‘n’ Roll sword with Classic Rock on the one side and Hard Rock on the other which cut through the audience like butter” and “True successors to Rock ‘n’ Roll!”. Other comparisons include “…RBB’s early songs were old school with a Kings Of Leon andge and the latter half of their set more punky with an Atreyu edge…” and “…Boy Sets Fire meets Judas Priest..;”The Reading Chronicle portrayed the band as “The tail end of Led Zeppelin and the bullit of Guns ‘n’ Roses”. During Summer 2008 the band was back in the studio (Stapleton acting as engineer/ mixer with the whole of the band being cited for production credits) to record the 10 songs (5 of which already featured on their self-titled demo) for a full-length release, inviting some friends over to add guest performances to the album (violin on “Rise Again” played by one Kat Iles, gang vocals on album opener “Fear, Love, Hate, Fight” by Kat and 4 additional people…plus RBB as a whole). While still working on some details and the mixing already underway in early August, the boys signed a publishing deal, and in mid November the band announced they had found a partner in Casket Music/ Copro for the distribution of the album. When it comes to giving RBB’s music my own description, I would say it is in essence Hard Rock with an additional Metal flavouring…in the old days we would’ve said it’s Heavy Rock, you know…which does not always work that well for me! Frankly, the Metal edge gives the sound a sharp edge which puts me off somewhat. And things wouldn’t even be so bad if it wasn’t for all of that going together with the somewhat heady vocals (dare I say he’s simply off-key quite frequently…oh, I just did, didn’t I?!) of the lead singer. Yeah, in my opinion there’s still some rough edges about this band (and that mainly in the vocal department) which need cleaning up! Check it out for yourselves by surfing to myspace.com/redburnsblack, where the band posted 3 songs from the new recordings. For more music by the band (and to compare one track) check the media player at the band’s own website redburnsblack.com! 79/100 Tony. |