Last Red Ransom - Sleep Well Sweet Vanity
CD Info
2012
Self Released / USA
12 Tracks
English Lyrics
You know, I don’t do a lot of live shows. And, there’s a reason for that; most of my favorite bands are from places like Chile, Russia, Ukraine, France, Spain, the Netherlands. . . well, you get the picture. My motorcycle just can’t make it there and the swim is beyond my current capabilities. So, the live shows are a little limited. But, I did make Dame-Nation in Chicago this month and was rewarded with some really fine music. And, one of the best, maybe the best, was a band from my old stompin’ grounds in the northern part of Atlanta. Now, I have history with the music business around Atlanta. Back in the day, we did the parks on the weekends, thousands came to watch the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, the Outlaws, Mother’s Finest (a killer female fronted funk band) and others jam for hours in the parks, in both Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, just down the road where several of the Allman Brothers are buried today after dying while riding their Triumphs. There were concerts to be sure, formal affairs where you paid at the door. But, there was an awful lot of free stuff as well, and, at that time, Atlanta may very well have been the music capital of the world, although San Francisco certainly had their share of the action as well. And Atlanta continues to have a solid music scene, I mean, the bars on Peachtree Street, Buckhead, Underground Atlanta, the entire area seems to have music from dusk till dawn, and a lot of it is as good as it gets.
Well, Last Red Ransom continues this musical excellence, although the music is certainly a little different than what we heard during my days in the area. That music was blues based; it had its origins in the black music that developed in the cotton fields a century before. The bands acknowledged this pedigree, they made clear where the ideas came from, and they often worked with the major black blues musicians of the day. Today, Last Red Ransom goes in some different directions musically. I spent some time discussing the issue with band members, both at the Dame-Nation show and while preparing this article. There have been terms applied to their music, terms like industrial, prog, rock and others. Well, that doesn’t help much. My assessment of their music at the concert was broader, but maybe more enlightening. I said it was more European based. I’m not sure the band would agree, maybe they don’t listen to all that much European music, but I do. The focus of the music is lead singer Charlotte Kelli Woods, who also plays keyboards and guitar, a multi-faceted musician if ever there was one. And Charlotte doesn’t just sing in one style, she does a fine straight musical vocal, a pleasant melodic sound, but she also does a screaming harsh metal vocal, in the best tradition of European vocalists like Cadaveria herself. And, that keyboard component also reminds us that there are sounds beyond the traditional American metal. Of course, if you watched the Allman Brothers clip above, you recognize that Southern Metal has always had keyboards as a signature component. But here, the keyboard is used to produce a sound that more closely approximates what we get from Europe, both East and West. And, to my way of thinking, that’s not a bad thing.
I was able to discuss some of the issues with Andrew Saint Woods, the other half of the central governing committee of LLR, in some FB messaging. I put the question of the "Industrial" tag to him directly, he had an interesting response, "I think we sound like a mix of Rock, Metal, and Industrial (Electronic/Synthetic), but we'd be interested in how you classify it." Well, that’s really passing the buck, but, it’s appropriate I guess. It’s his job to do the music, mine to classify. But, maybe the best thing is to let the reader classify, I’ll provide enough links in this article to provide that opportunity, and we’ll move on to the individual tracks, which actually seem to cover a variety of categories with some truly interesting and engaging music. The 12 tracks range from the traditional American metal to sounds that would work nicely in Moscow or Helsinki. And the topics covered lyrically also provide a broad range of ideas. Interestingly, what you don’t get is the "Southern Rock" that I lived with for so many years in the Deep South. Not that I’m complaining, it’s just an observation, one that says something about the diversification of the music scene in Atlanta.
Sleep Well Sweet Vanity starts out with a bang, no extended classical intro a la the European Gothic. This one gives us the full package; a crushing metal background that drives Charlotte’s vocal, both clean and screaming. And this is probably a stable interpretation of the LRR sound, it’s typically hard, pounding metal, this is what it’s all about. Reminds me of that New Iberian phrase the boys used in the day, "don’t need to slam no gram to be what I am". These folks come by it naturally. Make Up also makes clear exactly how the music is put together. LRR uses their own studio, Red Revolver Studios, to do the majority of their production, which certainly gives them a significant amount of control over what things sound like. And, if this sounds like a lot of music for a 4 musician band in live performance, well, there is some help. Saint noted, "No vocals or guitar are on backing track, but we do trigger some atmospheric and ambient keyboard parts." I mean, how much do you want from Charlotte, singing two parts, playing guitar and keys ain’t enough?
Black Gospel was a title that interested me even before hearing it. I’ve put my time in with the black Pentecostal churches in the Deep South, if for no other reason than to hear the music, which is beyond compare for any religious affiliation that I am aware of. And, I thought this might go in that direction. Well, there is a little of it here, maybe unintentionally. Saint commented on the message, "This song isn't about religion actually. It's about someone who wants to lead and acts as if their vision was the gospel truth, when in fact the person and their actions are poisonous." But the track does have a bit of a feel of the fundamentalist church, especially with the repeated refrain at the end.
Take your sermons to your grave / You’re no savior, just in the way
Spare me your sermons again / as if you ever know how the story will end
You are the over spoken / we are the under sold
You are the over spoken / we are the under sold
Clearly, a highlight of the CD is One Word, certainly my favorite track. And hearing Saint provide vocals is not really all that rare. Of course, the highlight is seeing Charlotte do what she does best, which is pretty much everything but playing drums or tap dancing. One of the things I found interesting with this one was a lyric saying:
She travels down to Berlin at 3 past 3 she’s home
Rouge lips now Cerulean sorrow her empty bed
I asked Saint about this one too, he said Berlin was used simply because it was a favorite city and seemed to provide an appropriate setting for the rest of the song. Internationalism, I told you it was here.
Synthetic Sleep provides a little more of the Saint vocal and a softer tone initially, maybe some of that "Industrial" feel we’ve been waiting for. But the lyrics point temptingly towards the Gothic:
From your blue tinted windows / You can’t see your own grave
Suffocate in this synthetic sleep / in this sick cellophane
And this interesting lyrical work is continued in other tracks, most specifically Empire which, unfortunately, doesn’t have a video for me to point towards. But the historical nature of the lyric and the focus on Roman themes certainly cries out for a bit of Latin to make it whole. Saint informs me that Charlotte was a Latin student and a big fan of Roman history and she used this background to describe how the CD was produced, "Lyrically she used the Roman motif and war drums to talk about how we basically wrote the album in 30 days as if we were quickly building an empire from the ashes of previous efforts."
My understanding is that another release is nearly complete, should be available in the near future. In the meantime, this should satisfy your needs for solid metal, maybe even Industrial, but certainly well developed, well produced and nicely delivered, in every respect. And personally, it’s sure nice to see solid material still coming from the ol’ sod. Hot ‘lanta never sounded better.
9.5 / 10
