Fused Together in Revolving Doors
[Robotic Empire Records]

There seems to be no end to the list of new bands coming out of the still-young genre of metalcore, combining the extreme musical brutality of death metal with the head-banging groove of hardcore to create a style of music that is technical and rhythmic at the same time, passionately emotional and heavy as hell. Don't let the "core" in the genre title fool you; many bands dropped into this category play an extreme metal that deserves to stand alongside the most brutal death and black metal. One such band, the Red Chord, has managed to take this seemingly popular style of underground metal and give it their own unique spin, proving once more that music can be rhythmic enough to get you to jump into the air and heavy enough to slam you to the ground at the same time, all while boasting a jaw-dropping technicality that will make you never want to pick up a musical instrument again.

The Red Chord (the name comes from a line in the Modernist opera "Wozzeck," by Alan Berg) hails from Massachusetts, and has been around for about three years, originally under the name Ictus. "Fused Together in Revolving Doors" is the band's first full length album, and besides a song on the "Dreams of the Damned" compilation and a demo with a print run of 100, is their first published musical endeavor as well. So it is all the more impressive that this release is so damn good. Many bands can work and strive for years without writing music this spectacular.

The title "Fused Together in Revolving Doors" is drawn from a real-life event, in which a building caught on fire, and the only exit was a set of revolving doors. So many people tried to push their ways through the doors at the same time that they became stuck, and the heat of the fire melted and fused the trapped bodies together. The music of the Red Chord is a similar amalgam of the extreme and the bizarre. There are similarities to death metal and grind, hardcore and metalcore, and sonic allusions to bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan, Origin, Cephalic Carnage, and Candiria. The lyrics are intelligent, touching on topics as diverse as emo sexual predators ("Masking your intentions in a blanket of sensitivity…") and obscure Nintendo games ("The name is Bagu. Show my note to River Man."). But the heat-melded end result is something mostly new, and wholly special.

Songs like "That Certain Special Ugly" and "Breed the Cancer" emphasize a brutal guitar attack and rolling drum blasts. "Breed the Cancer" especially has an impressive guitar riff that could be played by a black metal band as easily as a death metal group. There are plenty of face-slamming grooves to lose one's self in, and enough extreme metal virtuosity to satisfy even the most diehard Cryptopsy fanatic. Vocally, Guy Kozowyk spews forth a variety of low growls, high growls, and more metalcore harshness. Unlike most metalcore bands (and the Red Chord is as metalcore as they are death/grind), there are no clean vocals. This is nigh-thirty minutes of metal brutality, passionate and technical, and oh-so-enjoyable.

The Red Chord is certainly a band to watch in the future, as anyone who can nail extreme music this well on their first-time out is bound to have a few more tricks up their sleeves. "Fused Together in Revolving Doors" is fairly short, as far as metal albums go, but it is an exhausting enough musical experience to leave the listener smiling as he or she gasps for breath.