This time around Dan Grote and Keavin Wiggins give us their impressions of the debut album from Riverside California's The Color Red. 

The Color Red - Clear
Label: RCA/Dirty Martini
 

Tracks: The Other One  Cleansing  Wrong Replacement  Sore Throat  Your New Self  Intro / Season  Everything's New  Clone  Nothing, The  Founder  Do You  Miracles

First up Dan Grote gives us his spin on this disc. He gave it a Rating of 

From the label imprint that brought you Handsome Devil comes the Color Red, another Southern California rock band that got a leg up through nepotism and being friends with Lit.

Besides being signed to the Dirty Martini label, Color Red frontman and bassist Jon and Marc Zamora are the brothers of Alien Ant Farm’s Tye Zamora. In addition, according to the band’s press release, in their early days they played shows with the likes of Papa Roach, the Deftones, and the Offspring.

Though the band hails from California, the Color Red’s sound is much more reminiscent of the nu-Southern rock style of bands like Default and Saliva, and every bit as disposable. Indeed, if there is a memorable moment to be found on their debut album Clear’s twelve tracks, it is buried quite deeply and could only possibly be found after spinning this disc on repeat several times, which isn’t necessarily something one would want to do.

Clear starts off slow. After the first two tracks, “Other One” and “Cleansing,” there’s a feeling of still waiting to be impressed that is only remotely cured by “Wrong Replacement,” which starts off slower and with a change in texture, with less guitar sludge, but the song eventually goes back to what has come before.

 The lead single off the album is “Sore Throat,” which might be the most ambitious song on the album insofar as there are tiny hints of a Deftones influence. Said hints are almost automatically rubbed out by the cliché “falling away” lyrics. In addition, if one isn’t careful, it is very easy to confuse the opening bassline of the following track, “Your New Self,” with a continuation of “Sore Throat.”

Things pick up somewhat in the second half of the album. Track seven, “Everything New,” attempts to change up the band’s guitar sound again, while the lyrics to “Clone,” “There’s a new way out of here / it’s called deception” attempt to up the ante a little bit, although one still cannot escape the feeling that the band might just be trying too hard as opposed to not hard enough, which is the most one can ask for at this point.

Perhaps one of the worst offenders in the trying too hard category is the closing song, “Miracles,” another slow track, complete with string section and “Epic”-style quiet piano ending. Lyrics-wise, the song consists mostly of Zamora singing “Believe in miracles” and “Shine at night” over and over again.

VERDICT: Guitarist Billy Meyer is quoted as saying on the Color Red’s press release that, “I … want people to be able to listen to our song within the first five seconds and know that it’s us. Before the vocals come in or if it’s a guitar intro – I want people to be able to hear it and say, ‘Oh, that’s the new Color Red song.’” Unfortunately, this kind of unmistakable originality is nowhere to be found on the album. There are no such emotional appeals or invocations to rock on Clear, which, by the way, is a bit of an odd choice for an album name by a band named after a color.

Now Keavin Wiggins tell us what he thought of the CD. He gave it a Rating of 

Like Dan pointed out in his review, The Color Red falls into the genre of bands like Default and Saliva as well as Nickelback but they actually come in a few notches heavier than those bands; somewhere in between Nickelback and Systematic.  The nature of this series is to offer two different perspectives on the CD’s reviewed and that is the case here as I actually have a more positive impression of “Clear”. True, my opinion may be shaded by the fact that I have seen them live a couple of times and was impressed by the energy the deliver on stage and sadly the full force of that intensity didn’t come across on the album, but it’s not wimped out either.  That being said, the album does have it’s own appeal and should find an audience with fans of bands like Nickelback, Default and nu-metal bands that don’t rely on rapping.  The Color Red doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, nor strike out in new musical directions from today’s more mainstream rock bands but they do an adequate job of keeping up with their peers. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that “Clear” is in many ways superior to Lit’s over formulaic “Atomic”. Where Lit gets bogged down, trying to attach themselves to the current trends in alternative rock, The Color Red seem more honest in their approach and are far heavier than the version of Lit we heard on their latest studio album. They aren’t trying to be the next Nirvana but instead concentrate on delivering some solid modern rock mixed with guitar elements of nu-metal. 

From the approach of expecting something new, Dan hit the mark right on the head; you won’t find it here. On the other hand, if you are a big fan of modern rock and don’t mind a new band that doesn’t go too far in differentiating itself from their peers, there is a lot to be had on this album. The fact that the Color Red mixes elements of standard modern rock and nu-metal actually helps set them apart from other bands. True the elements they use aren’t original but they do a pretty good job of bringing those two worlds of music together.  

Not all of the tracks are gems, but not all of them are throwaways either. The Color Red find their best moments on “Clear” when they set out to rock with tracks like “The Other One”, “Cleansing”, “Clone” and “Sore Throat”. The more radio friendly songs like “Wrong Replacement” and “The Nothing” are adequate but don’t have the hooks needed to leave a lasting impression. The contrast from soft to heavy is great but because of the increase in intensity with the choruses the songs are lacking that melodic element that songs like Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” have that compel you to sing along. The Color Red come close to that mark with “Do You” but don’t quite reach it. Their best light into heavy moments come with “Your New Self” where they take things from a nice calm verse into full throttle rock that feels like you’ve been thrown against a brick wall. 

To their credit you won’t find yet another Eddie Veddar rip off vocal style that you might expect. Sure Jon Zamora, is a baritone and his voice isn’t exceptionally unique but he falls more into the nu-metal vocal style then grunge also-rans and he’s not afraid to unleash full screaming fury where it is needed. The rhythm section is pretty solid and by far the band’s biggest strength is found in the guitarist department. In some ways, they match the guitar styling of bands like Finger Eleven who incorporate interesting leads with heavy powerchords and on some of the songs where other band would simply lay down power chords, The Color Red delivers some competent leads as demonstrated on songs like “Everything New” and “The Other One”. 

All in all, this isn’t a bad debut; it is timely and should find a ready-made audience with modern rock and some nu-metal fans. If your looking for something totally new, then you might want to skip this one but if you enjoy the current crop of modern rock bands, The Color Red should fit nicely into your CD collection. What stops The Color Red from being a great band is their song writing; It isn’t quite polished and focused enough. The basic elements are there, they just fail to fully execute at the crucial moments. If they can improve their songwriting skills and find a few more hooks to throw into the mix, they can be real contenders. Until then, they have delivered an enjoyable debut album that is more than relevant to the music scene of 2002. Whether this disc will be as relevant five years down the line, we won’t know until we get there. But in the here and now, there is enough here to please most mainstream modern rock fans. 
 

Listen to samples and Purchase this CD online

Visit the official site for The Color Red for more information on this CD and the band

About the reviewers:

Dan Grote is a feature writer for antiMUSIC and the iconoFAN network.

Keavin Wiggins is the founder and executive editor of antiMUSIC and the iconoFAN Network.