Posted on: February 16, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Retching Red take no time creating their signature song that catapulted them into the hearts and minds of all true punks during their last album. “Get Your Red Wings” was a great album, but “Scarlet Whore of War” improves on even that. The recording is even better, allowing the guitar and Cinder Block to put forth different sounding outputs even if they at some point are similarly aligned (at the frequency level). The guitar work present on “Bludgeoner” is furious and driving, and pushes Cinder Block to go even faster. The blaze of glory that Retching Red puts forth on their “Scarlet Whore of War” is intense, furious, but is catchy at some point.

Even when the band scales things back (like during “More Bad News”), Retching Red’s output is hard to underestimate in importance. The equivalent to getting a breath for Retching Red is to slow things down to a DRI-level of thrash; for the average listeners, this is still too fast for anyone to really The disc only lasts about twenty-four minutes, but the replay value of “Scarlet Whore of War” is something that just cannot be matched. The disc can be put on repeat and individuals can rock out just as hard to it the fifteenth time as they did the first. During some tracks, the music that Retching Red plays sounds like a more intelligent and harder-hitting version of M.O.D.; “Blot It Out” sounds like something that would be on “U.S.A. for M.O.D.”. This type of sound is furthered when Retching Red goes into “Stop Breeding”. With a chorus that goes even further into the type of pop-punk catchiness than anything else in the disc (with the memorable chorus of “Stop Breeding”), Retching Red do not slow down in the least for the last part of the disc. There are even hints of Iowaska when the band kicks into “Upright Candidate”. Even though Retching Red do not get into the goth-crust of Iowaska, the vocals are similar in both. They are the focal point that individuals focus into.

“Scarlet Whore of War” is another great album from Retching Red, and there is little doubt in my mind that they will be one of a rising wave of thrash acts that will keep the urgency and pointedness of punk rock alive, even as the bands in popular culture go further away from the original ideals of punk.

Top Tracks: Freaky Nightmare, More Bad News

Rating: 8.6/10

Retching Red – Scarlet Whore of War / 2006 Rodent Popsicle Records / 14 Tracks / http://www.retchingred.com / http://www.rodentpopsicle.com / Reviewed 24 May 2006

[JMcQ]

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