Red Tide, We Barely Knew Ya

Alex Khan, bassist for Margo (who I review in this week's upcoming column), just lent me a CD by a former CT band called Red Tide.

I'm completely astounded. This recording, "Type II," is from 2000, and yet it's filled with techniques that are only recently being popularized in metalcore. These guys were using blastbeats long before The Red Chord and Between the Buried and Me popularized the crossover of deathgrind into metalcore. And they were incorporating bizarre elements like Latin polyrhythms into their songs -- something perhaps only Flo Mournier of Cryptopsy can lay contemporaneous claim to.

Drummer Justin Foley's jazz-inspired drumming has since led him to greener pastures, which rules. After the breakup of Red Tide (which I think occurred in 2000 or 2001), he joined Blood Has Been Shed, whose 2003 album "Spirals" is, in my not very humble opinion, a metal masterpiece. "Spirals" is a challenging and rewarding listen, and I'm thrilled to see that Foley's complex ideas have roots in Red Tide's fertile, more jazz-friendly compositions. (Most people probably know Foley as the drummer for titans Killswitch Engage. He and BHBS vocalist Howard Jones transplanted to KsE after the departure of their original drummer and their vocalist Jesse Leach. While KsE obviously consumes the majority of their time, there is no official word of a BHBS breakup, and I'm quietly hoping for new material -- or at least an announcement of new material -- sometime this year.)

I'm beginning to think that, between Red Tide and Biartz, CT may have had an all-too-brief (and altogether undocumented) moment where it was on the bleeding edge of the jazz-metal-hardcore fusion.

If anyone has more information about Red Tide, or is in touch with former members, let me know -- I'd love to hear more.

Resources:
http://www.bnrmetal.com/groups/reti.htm
Review of "Type II"
http://www.defenestratedzine.com/Reviews/Discs/RedTide-TypeII.html
Review of
http://www.defenestratedzine.com/Reviews/Discs/RedTide-CosmicConsciousness.html
Interview
http://www.defenestratedzine.com/Interviews/Pages/RedTideInterview.html

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dan Barry... isn't that a city? yeah, it is... it's the hat capital of the greater northeast. or it used to be, once upon a time - before industrial capitalism ate itself and evolved its eager appetite to a large diet of outsourcecake and sleazy-CEO-cheat-scheme-pie. mmm, creamy. the only thing you'll ever get from Danbury is the clap and i don't mean applause. local bands beware: stay as far away as possible from Dan Barry.

keep rockin' (sincerely),

disgruntled aging wannabe/has-been musician, who can still play killer two hand tapping solos for the right price. from Hartford CT (AKA- my band plays there, but i live in Simsbury.)

Anonymous said...

oh yeah, by the way, jowarholil the hartdrocker here again. did i mention i can two hand tap? yeah, well, dan barry doesn't think that's cool. he libeled me in his column - said i was a Night Ranger sound alike. i mean, that's cool to be compared to Jeff Watson and Brad Gillis, (two idols of mine), but i got my own sound. i got more flange than uranus has crater. dudes, don't believe this modern-rock propaganda!! don't let the man (aka Dan Barry) control what are considered good rock. i'm EOR - equal opportunity rock - so all you two hand tapping bigots out there, yeah, i said bigots, cuz you are. go learn some power chords and shut up. hey, when i'm testing out guitars at Daddy's i need to show some skills. every music shop's a stage - that's my motto. you gotta rock solid all the time. who knowns when Rick Rubin will be hanging out at Guitar Center.

anyways, play what you feel, as long as it include mixo-frigian scales, and 21/8 time signatures then it's cool with me. otherwise it's crap and that's not opinion it's a rockfact.

- keep rockin'
j-man, the two hand tapping appeggiating nut-job. Hartford ROCKS!

ps- check out brad gillis's website: www.bradgillis.com