OneMetal.com REVIEW:
The Red Chord – Fed Through The Teeth Machine

Since releasing Fused Together In Revolving Doors in 2002, The Red Chord have become one of the most respected bands in the underground extreme music scene. They have spent the last seven years developing and expanding upon the template set by that first album – the technical riffage, grindcore velocities, and death metal aesthetics underpinning the whole package, bolstered by Guy Kozowyk’s bellowing vocals and intricate, poetic lyricism. Fed Through The Teeth Machine represents the band’s first outing as a quartet, having first lost guitarist Johnny Fay to his burgeoning career as a recording engineer, and more recently losing replacement Mike Keller, leaving Mike “Gunface” McKenzie as the group’s solo axe-wielder. So, what does that mean for The Red Chord‘s sound?

Well, this is definitely a stripped-down The Red Chord album – but whereas the material (still spazzy enough and possessed of enough finger-breaking riffs to make less-gifted guitarists like this scribe weep with envy, mind you) may be less over-the-top and convoluted, it is more focused on its strongest elements – witness bassist Greg Weeks’s significantly advanced contribution to the sonic impact of the tracks, dealing out melodic runs, counter-melodies, or just straight-up low-end heft to Gunface’s frantic riffage. That riffage, too – Gunface manages to touch all bases, from Pantera-esque soloing in the midsection of ‘Ingest The Ash’, to straight-up melodic hardcore chord progressions in parts of ‘Embarrassment Legacy’, while still throwing in hyper-speed tremolo-picked death metal riffage, Gojira-esque slashing palm mutes and just about everything else inbetween.

The drummer’s no slouch either – Brad Fickeisen responds to the streamlining and speeding-up of The Red Chord‘s output by seemingly effortlessly raising his game, deploying machine-like double-kick patterns, supercharged blast beats and artfully-employed, intricate fills to undeniable effect. Guy brings his A-game too, his death-metal-roar-meets-hardcore-bellowing remaining a forceful, yet surprisingly legible presence throughout the record.

The rub of it all, however, is this – the shortened track lengths and increased velocity means that it is quite easy for the tracks on this album to run together into a blasting, whirling, faceless cacophony with inattentive listening – the hooks are there, but you have to actively listen out for them, making this more of an album to stick on in the background as an accompaniment to some online deathmatching, rather than one to listen to on headphones so you can pick out all of the twists and turns. That said, however, as a delivery device for frenetic, breathless extreme metal, you can’t go far wrong with Fed Through The Teeth Machine.

Bottom Line

A streamlined, yet energised The Red Chord deliver an exhilerating album that is undeniably satisfying, if lacking the lasting appeal to become a classic in the genre.