When we last heard from the West Country based quartet, it was April of 2014, and Red Seas Fire had just unleashed Confrontation, the follow up to 2013’s Exposition. Since then, the band continued pushing themselves ahead through self-imposed challenges to ensure that their last installment of their now three year spanning ‘Mise En Scène’ project was the most devastating work of all. Largely home-produced and recorded (with a little help from their friends), forthcoming ‘Resolution’ truly finds Red Seas Fire as masters of their manifest destiny, each element of their richly textured sound dense with peaks, troughs and, well, riffs….
Red Seas Fire’s track ‘Hourglass’ opens the EP with an explosive start, effectively using an energetic and aggressive opening vocal part which soon turns into a clear and soaring melodic vocal line cutting through in the chorus. The track keeps constant engagement with the listener and makes you want to get up and move your ass around like a monkey on speed. The band then launch another glorious riff in ‘Blood Bank’ with its notable sliding feature catching the attention of any listener.
Following similarly to the first track, ‘Blood Bank’ also cuts into a beautiful chorus, with a captivating vocal part gelling nicely with the accompanying guitar parts. The aggression continues in verse 2, along with a cheeky little guitar sweep to add a bit of glimmer. The track moves into a roaring section followed by a tight and chunky breakdown. A softer side to Red Seas Fire then emerges with a very sparse smooth section opening up before it comes straight back in with a tight building section reminiscent of Funeral For A Friend-esque pre choruses. The song then features a powerful ending section with a brilliant ending drum fill and synth arpeggio finishing the job.
‘The Mistakes We Made’ opens with another bold and dark opening riff, with a subtle melody on top. They use effective screamo vocals over the verse reminiscent of Lamb Of God which then flows into a great section with the clean vocal coming back in and a great new rhythmic section erupting. A very catchy and energetic riff opens up and flows nicely into another powerful and aggressive section with synths floating over the top. The singer really puts the emotion on the table capturing it in both the lyrics and in his delivery. Again the soft side to red seas fire shines through, with delayed clean guitar backing the nice clean vocals before the previous pouncing riff returns, now with a different vocal part on top. This flows into a great section with a soaring vocal part which has strong potential to be the highlight to the EP. Red Seas Fire then return to their dark side with powerful and deep aggression ending with an extremely beefy riff, sure to open several mosh pits live.
‘Ocean Death’ begins slowing building with a nice string section over the top of a snare roll, before brass comes into play. The peaceful sounds are put to an end as brutal guitar riffs rip through the speakers making your head move back and forth without any conscious decision. The vocal part hits the highest note of the EP and provides a great insight into the ability of Red Seas Fire. The soft and aggressive sides of the band are fighting each other throughout this EP, but definitely resolve to create the stunning ‘Resolution’.