REDS - Demo

taken from deep fry bonanza

Here's more quirky, post-hardcore-ish indie rock from kids who, by the sound of it, were bashing out rough but progressive screamo just a short while ago. I'm not sure what it is about the screamo scene that makes it such a fertile breeding ground for indie rock genius, but the recent spate of bands who have turned down the heavy in their music in order to find the brilliant melodies lurking underneath proves that there is, indeed, some degree of correlation between these two sounds.

Reds don't really dive off of the indie rock deep end as blindly as, say, Mannequin has done; "Dividing Unions," for instance, is rather loud and abrasive and the only thing really keeping it from being straight-up screamo is the lack of a booming low end. On the other two tracks, though, Reds have all of the power, punk energy and sophisticated song structures of Drive Like Jehu; "Lost Tapes from the Federal Sessions" and "Do It. Do It." are complex, elegantly produced post-pop masterpieces that seem to bloom like flowers, starting off as rather lean but promising buds and expanding to dizzyingly-complex would-be anthems.

With only three songs clocking in at eight and a half minutes, this EP/demo by Reds isn't really the best value for money out there, but songs this strong are bound to get them noticed by a solid label who will hopefully give them the budget to make an LP this fascinating. If you've been following bands like Transistor Transistor and Hot Cross as they rediscover their pop roots this is a band whose work you don't want to be ignorant of.