Red Seas Fire – ‘Confrontation’ [Review]
Metal’s been around for a long time now – but it never ceases to amaze me how many musicians are still finding ways to breathe new life into a genre so frequently mocked for its backward-looking retromania.
On Confrontation, Red Seas Fire take all manner of pre-existing metallic mutations and mix them into still another fresh sound. Think Korn’s first album mixed with Periphery’s latest and you have Tyrants; visualise Chester Bennington laying down vocals over a Killswitch Engage / Tesseract jam and you’ll get closing track Compass. The Gold Room, meanwhile, offers fuzzy riffs and hardcore vocals alongside catchy lyrics sure to translate live and a bit of Dillinger Escape Plan-esque mathiness toward the end, while The Grand Escape is pure djent-fuelled filth. In short, Confrontation is all killer, and absolutely no filler. Read more…
A note-one winner. Melodic tech-metal with elements of Periphery-influenced djent and (on opener Ephemeral) a fantastic Tom Morello stutter-guitar moment kept me set on staying put for this LP’s full running time. I do not regret that decision. 
Here at TMMP, grassroots music is a big deal. I’ve never understood why people will happily watch rubbish, stuck-in-a-rut TV talent shows that promote an illusory path to instant fame (and drop almost every winner once the last pennies have been squeezed from their exhaustive promotional activities) when hundreds of far more fascinating stories can be found just down the road, at a local music venue like