Innocence & Instinct — Red

Innocence & Instinct is the second album by Red, the Nashville band that mixed heavy, down-tuned guitars with strings and piano. Essential Records released it on February 10, 2009. It's ten songs in a little over forty-one minutes, produced by Rob Graves, who'd made their debut, and mixed by Ben Grosse. Where End of Silence introduced the sound, this is the record where Red got bigger, darker and more sure of what they were.

The story

Red's first album had earned a Grammy nomination and a run of rock radio hits, so the follow-up had a lot to live up to. The band didn't get the luxury of time to make it. Guitarist Jasen Rauch told the Japanese site Gekirock that a band gets its whole life to write a first album, but the second has to be made fast, and theirs came together in sessions on the tour bus and in hotel rooms. He said that left no room for pressure to creep in.

The idea behind it was set early. In a March 2008 interview with Always Acoustic, before the lyrics were even finished, Rauch already had the title and explained what it meant. "The duality of good and evil," he said. "Just as humans and our stories, you can't have one without the other." The label's own description put it more simply: innocence is where we all begin, and instinct can quickly take over.

Rauch told Gekirock he'd been reading Dante's Inferno on tour when the writing started. He liked how the poem dealt with pain, suffering and hurt, because those were the things Red's songs were often about. The album, he said, is about the bad side that follows each of us around and the good side that keeps trying to beat it, with neither one ever winning for good. We all have to keep up that fight our whole lives, he said. He was careful to add that it isn't really a concept album. It's just what all the songs add up to.

You can see that idea on the cover, too. It's built on an old engraving of winged angels with shields and swords, all tangled up in a fight. Rauch told Gekirock the art shares the feel of the Inferno, grand and beautiful on one side and terrifying on the other.

The sound

"Fight Inside" opens the album and tells you exactly where you are. Strings swell, the guitars drop in hard, and Michael Barnes sings about the war going on inside him. It was the first single, and Cross Rhythms noted that it debuted at No. 1 on the Radio & Records Christian rock chart. "Death of Me" follows and leans heavier still. That's the one Red sent to mainstream rock stations.

The middle of the record slows down. "Mystery of You," "Start Again" and "Never Be the Same" are closer to big ballads, and Kevin Hoskins at Jesus Freak Hideout called them "ballad/worship style tracks" that remind fans "what the band's focus is." Then "Confession (What's Inside My Head)" kicks the door back in, short and furious. "Shadows" was co-written by Benjamin Burnley of Breaking Benjamin, and you can hear it in the huge, radio-ready chorus.

The odd one out is a cover of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World." Rauch admitted to Gekirock that it surprised people. He said the band liked that the chords weren't the usual pop progression, and that the lyrics, about leaving the bad behind and looking for a better place, fit what the album was saying. The closer, "Take It All Away," strips things back to strings, piano and a slow beat before Barnes lets rip with one last shout near the end.

Rauch also shared something he said shocks people when they hear it: Barnes is a classically trained singer. That helps explain how he can move from a clean croon to a full yell in the same song.

Faith in both markets

Red never hid what they believed, but they didn't stay inside church walls either. Rauch told The Canton Repository in June 2009 that the band spent most of its touring time outside the Christian market. "Being part of both the mainstream and Christian markets gives us the opportunity to soak in both sides of the human experience, and pour that into our lyrics," he said. That's the whole album in one line. These are songs about doubt, shame and temptation, written by men who think there's a way out.

How it did

It did better than the debut. According to Nielsen SoundScan figures the label announced, it sold nearly 40,000 copies in its first week and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 15. The Canton Repository put the figure at 39,000. It went on to a Grammy nomination for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album, Red's second in that category. In April 2010 it won Rock Album of the Year at the GMA Dove Awards.

What the critics said

Most of the Christian press liked it a lot. Wayne Myatt at Jesus Freak Hideout said Red had "evolved and succeeded in bringing listeners an album that should impress fans and newcomers alike." He called "Out From Under" "easily the best song on the album," though he thought "Death of Me" was one of the least memorable tracks. Hoskins went further and called "Take It All Away" "perhaps the best music that I have ever heard from the band." His only complaint was that ten songs felt a little short.

Graeme Crawford at Cross Rhythms called it "a strong and emotive collection" of "hook-laden anthems." But he also thought the polished production took the edge off the music, "almost to the point of being overproduced." He found "Confession" flat and the Duran Duran cover "too generic," a "straight note for note playthrough."

The toughest review came from Rick Gebhardt, first published at Decoy Music in January 2009. He liked Barnes' voice, the "absolutely huge" chorus on "Shadows" and the "killer" one on "Mystery of You," but heard almost no growth since the first album. Every song, he wrote, "could easily be placed between any two tracks on End of Silence and not feel the least bit out of place."

The verdict

Gebhardt has a point. Red didn't reinvent anything here, and a few of the slower songs blur together. The Duran Duran cover is fun but doesn't add much. Still, the best songs on Innocence & Instinct are the best Red had written up to then. "Fight Inside," "Shadows," "Out From Under" and "Take It All Away" hit hard and mean it, and the strings feel like part of the band rather than decoration. It's a big, honest rock record about the fight between who we are and who we want to be, by a band that never pretended the fight was easy. Start with "Fight Inside," then play it straight through. For more on the band, see our Red page.

7/10

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