ALBUM REVIEW: For The Sick – Red Method

The most impressive thing about RED METHOD‘s full-length debut, For The Sick, is how the six-piece managed to stretch songs out to five minutes and beyond while sticking to high-speed in their tornado of screams, growls, yells, soaring cleans, technical music and everything in between.

Cycle of Violence kickstarts For The Sick with a continuously shifting tone that varies from blustering grand lines to unorthodox breakdowns. Singer Jeremy Gomez is confident as hell, but more importantly he is unpredictable. There are a lot of dynamic shifts and tempo changes throughout the record’s ten songs.

There are quite a few moments on For The Sick where RED METHOD excels at. One of these is a surprising, almost folkish motive at the beginning of Split which doesn’t take too long before shifting to a real hodgepodge of different influences. The strong vocal interplay, courtesy of Gomez, is impressive to say the least. Messiah is equally as appealing, and it’s around there where For the Sick establishes itself as an extremely clever listen.

Cycle of Violence, featuring AKERCOCKE guitarist Jason Mendonca, is arguably one of the most dissonant moments on the album that that in some weird way manages to be playful while avoiding annoying the listener. Ideology of the Sick and Adriel are both extremely intricate enough to be preceded with an auguring interlude that is Cycle of Violence, yet straightforward enough to remain insanely memorable.

On For The Sick, the riffwork of guitarists David Tobin and Quinton Lucion serves the song and vice versa, and overall, the band’s focus is manifested in refined, well-paced songs that are never boring for a split second. Fans of the acts such SLIPKNOT, GOJIRA, DECAPITATED and MINISTRY will be pleased to know that the overall pace of the tracks is terrifyingly fast without being ridiculous.

For The Sick is one of the most entertaining albums we’ve heard recently. It lays down more than solid foundation for the band’s upcoming releases, and because of that it will be quite challenging for RED METHOD to top it.

Rating: 8/10

For The Sick is set for release on February 28th via self-release.

Like RED METHOD on Facebook.