Review of Red's Until We Have Faces

Is there a thing where the best songs on an album go first, and then the rest fill in behind? Obviously not. I can think of albums in which the best songs go first, albums that put the good songs at the front and at the end (tapering off in the middle, if you will), albums that disperse their good songs evenly throughout, and – the best type – albums that don't need to worry about any of that because every single song seems like the best one on the album. So there's no generalization to be made about where an album's best songs are put.

But Until We Have Faces, the album released in 2011 by hard rock band Red, made me think for a moment that some artists or record labels might do just the former – filling in the track listing with an extremely front-heavy balance and then leave the ending to taper off with a whimper.

I love Red, and, in fact, UWHF is my favorite album by them, ahead of even their epic 2009 work, Innocence & Instinct, and their 2006 debut End of Silence. Their 2013 release, Release the Panic, was, unfortunately, just terrible.

But UWHF ultimately got me thinking about track listing orders and where the best songs are put. The usual front-end-heavy album can go like this:  Tracks 1 and 2 lay it down – the songwriting is great and the listener is drawn in. Tracks 3 through 5 usually become the radio singles, with catchiness and simplicity as the name of the game. Then, somewhere around track 6 or 7, the listener begins to lose sight of whatever it was that made the first couple of tracks good – and then halfway through track 10, the listener realizes that a bunch of filler songs just went by and the only draw-in was a cool moment here or there. By track 12, or whenever the album ends, the album feels like it has songs bleeding into each other, and the only punctuation is a track radically different from the others in style (e.g. an acoustic or ballad on a metal album). It's all hypothetical and it's all relative, but it can happen.

Here's the track listing for Until We Have Faces:

1. Feed The Machine
2. Faceless
3. Lie To Me (Denial)
4. Let It Burn
5. Buried Beneath
6. Not Alone
7. Watch You Crawl
8. The Outside
9. Who We Are
10. Best Is Yet To Come
11. Hymn For The Missing

"Feed The Machine" is a hard-hitting and aggressive song that starts off with a heavy drop-A riff, matched in intensity by an insanely melodic chorus with some ingenious chord changes and then a symphonic instrumentalist ending that slowly fades out. All in all, a fantastic song. I don't know of an album out there that has such a quality track as its opener. (But then again…my knowledge. It is limited, after all.)

So far, so good. It gets better. "Faceless" was the first radio single off the album, and the song that got me really into Red after only having heard "Death of Me" (from I&I) years before. The riff matches the density of that of the first track, and the verse and chorus are perfect matches for each other as the flow alternates between a guitar-driven rock groove and a smooth, melodic chorus. The bridge I am not too fond of, but the rest of the song still kicks butt. As far as title tracks go, this is it for UWHF.

Then comes my all-time favorite Red song and one that I can listen to for hours: "Lie To Me (Denial)" did not fare too well on the radio, but it fared incredibly well on my iPod. I'm not sure how to describe the beginning, but it's some sort of interaction between electronics and high strings, the sort of 20-second song intro that can be qualified sometimes as 'white noise'.  I'd just say that that'd be the product of not listening close enough. I mean, honestly, it's very cool stuff.

The track really picks up with the entrance of the guitar in a pre-riff, whereupon the strings are turned up and general epicness ensues. The main riff comes in and I am sucked in for the rest of the ride. Complex is the adjective to describe "Lie To Me"; there's so much going on between instruments, vocals, and the lyrics. "I'll still be here when you see / you're not alone" is a line that isn't spectacular in itself, but it's one that made this song stick with me. And I shouldn't forget about the strings – they are the heroes, giving the hard rock / heavy metal feel a whole other dimension in a genre that can get a bad rap for hosting poor musicians. I say that this song blows a lot of the songs out there out of the water, especially in terms of musicianship and songwriting. Really, if there's one song on this album to listen to all the way through, it's "Lie To Me (Denial)", and then "Faceless" if you're intrigued.

But remember what I said about the best coming first, leaving the rest of the songs to follow? Until We Have Faces is a prime example. Track 4 is (still) a very good song entitled "Let It Burn", but the very feel of the entire album changes as soon as the track starts and the middle strings play their little pre-guitar-entrance intro. It's just not heavy. Not even an element of suspense exists, as it did in the first three track intros – that in itself isn't bad – but it doesn't live up to the potential and feeling that the first three tracks left behind. The guitar plays two simple four-chord power-chord progressions and then cuts out, leaving the strings as the main melodic instruments. No complex riff, as seen in the first three tracks.

But okay, variety is good. The song turns into an absolute lyrical and melodic monster and in no way disappoints. The chorus is simply amazing in terms of lyrics, but especially in terms of the melody that the singer gets going. In general, I'm just noting how the three hardest-hitting, unique songs were put up front, and then the softer metal songs were almost told to just file in behind.

Maybe it's a little bit of a stretch. But let's keep going. Next up is the track "Buried Beneath". I'd say that this is the threshold of where my favorite songs on the album end – these first five tracks are my favorites and could make a high-quality EP in themselves. They are all amazing, contrast extremely well, and make hard rock and metal look really good in all aspects of music. If the album were cut short here, I wouldn't be writing this blog about the order of tracks, but, of course, modern music labels push their bands to make more and more music and write whole albums in two year intervals. Results may vary.

So "Buried Beneath" is another song with a string-driven melody, with the guitar only playing an accompanying part as a simple four-chord progression instrument. There are hints of guitar movement at the end of the fourth chord, just as sort of a fill to return to the root. Other than that, the name of the game is again a captivating melody from the singer. There's something about the chorus of this one that makes me include this track into my list of favorites; it's not something I can describe without referencing the stereotypical "great lyrics, great melody". Maybe it's the monster hit to begin the chorus. Maybe it's those four chords that are insanely catchy. I'm not sure. Describing music is hard sometimes.

According to my opinion, we've passed the best-song threshold and move into the realm of good songs, but not the best. What do you know? It's track 6 now, the point when songs can begin to bleed into each other. You'll notice that I write less about each ensuing track, for probably deducible reasons.

Track 6 is called "Not Alone". The gradual fade in of a soft, soothing trio of piano chords, clean guitar and long, drawn-out string lines is the polar opposite of the aggressive riff that kicked off "Feed The Machine". I mean, what happened? Still, the singer (his name's Michael Barnes) has an amazing enough voice to carry a fantastic verse and chorus. Later in the song, the drums pick up and the guitar comes in (on – surprise – simple power chords again!) and the song rises a little. However, I get the hint of staleness that was nowhere even near being present in the first three tracks.

The first seconds of the seventh track, "Watch You Crawl", had me excited again when I first listened to it. The guitar riff was back! It was very rhythmical and groovy, and a riff was all I wanted after the snoozefest-guitarwork of the three previous tracks. Remember the hit-and-miss cool moments I described in my hypothetical album? This is it. The riff brings your mind back to the album, but it's still a far cry from the riff that started "Feed The Machine". A sixteenth-note pattern keeps the verse going, but as soon as that ends, the chorus falls on its face, and, more than that, it simply does not flow with any of the rest of the song. It seems out place, especially when it proceeds to not mesh well at all with the admittedly-strange bridge. Worst of all, when the beginning guitar riff comes back, the riff itself seems out of place.

Track 8 is entitled "The Outside". It's actually a very cool song, so UWHF doesn't completely go down the drain. After all, this is one of my favorite albums – even the lesser tracks are great songs. "The Outside" still, however, doesn't compare to "Lie To Me" and the beginning of the album. The same goes for track 9: "Who We Are". The drums are unique and the chorus is huge, but the complexity and musicality that went into the first three to five tracks is somehow missing.

Track 10, "The Best Is Yet To Come", is where the staleness begins to set in: the major chorus and uplifting sentiment is a cool contrast to pretty much everything else on the album, but after the second chorus, we're just given a lot of time to listen to soaring strings and 'woah-oh's over and over again. The last lyric is repeated several times: "I still believe the best is yet to come", which is a line that gives the title a lot of real meaning, but it's something that lacks substance. Obviously, this entire matter is highly opinionated, but that's my take on how the last half of this track goes – it simply has no effect on the listener. I could even stretch it to say that the whole last half of the album fails to impact the listener in the way that the first half did.

Finally, we've reached the end of the album. Track 11 is called "Hymn For The Missing" and I'd imagine it to be the most polarizing song on the album. By that, I mean it's either a perfect ending to some, or an unfortunate ending for others. The song is entirely piano and vocals, with some strings thrown in there – essentially a slow, emotional ballad to close out the album. Remember the radically different track, sometimes an acoustic on a metal album? This is it. I'm going to be honest – at five and a half minutes, I can barely get through the whole thing. In fact, I might have only listened to it all the way through once or twice. Still, it seems like it belongs on a totally different album, not one that started off with the heavy-hitting "Feed The Machine".

If "Hymn For The Missing" had opened the album and been followed by "Feed The Machine", the band could justifiably be called crazy because that makes no sense. Also, had "Best Is Yet To Come" closed out the album, anyone reading the track list would be confused because nothing would be yet to come after that track. (I'm joking.)

So track listing orders are definitely purposeful to some degree. Red came out with fiery hard rock, and then gained a more melodic (and stale) side as the album progressed. Was that their intention? Or did they just put what I thought were their better songs up front to keep the listener listening? How much would the album change if the producers just hit the randomizer for track order? Would the listener have lost interest earlier?

Try it, I guess. I shuffled UWHF on a whim and here's the order I got: 1. Watch You Crawl 2. Hymn For The Missing 3. The Outside 4. Feed The Machine 5. Not Alone 6. Best Is Yet To Come 7. Who We Are 8. Let It Burn 9. Buried Beneath 10. Faceless 11. Lie To Me (Denial). It's safe to say that I would have stopped listening after "The Outside", or at least skipped those first three tracks. I mean, that's no way to start off an album.

So the placement of stronger tracks up front seems to have been purposeful, but I would have preferred a dispersion-type album, where the strong tracks are mixed throughout the album. FTM is a stronger opener, but "Faceless" and "Lie To Me" don't have to come directly afterwards.

I still enjoy each and every track on Until We Have Faces, even the filler late-album tracks that don't even compare to their best work. Really, the quality of each individual song is what really matters, and the track listing shouldn't even be a topic of discussion, unless you want to tell a story – as in a concept album – or give the album a certain flow. Other than that, any order will do. I just felt that the high standard set by the first five songs was not met by the last half of the album, and would have preferred a more balanced approach. And thus concludes my review of Red's Until We Have Faces and some musings on the way in which songs are ordered on an album.

~B.H.