The Reds 2007 album release, Fugitives From The Laughing House, featuring founding members, Rick Shaffer and Bruce Cohen, is a neo sixties / post-punk world of buzzing drones, three dimensional sounds, stinging guitars, raw emotion — a soundscape that hits the listener’s consciousness, while lyrically taking on deep matters of the soul.
The Reds have not strayed from their roots on this album. The passion, aggressive drive and angular electronic textures in previous albums and film work, best represented in The Reds (A&M), Shake Appeal (Sire/WB), and Cry Tomorrow (Tarock Music), along with their work for director, Michael Mann, in the films Manhunter and Band Of The Hand, and numerous episodes of Miami Vice.
Fugitives From The Laughing House contains the propelling, ringing and slashing guitars of Rick Shaffer, along with the spatial, crazed keyboards of Bruce Cohen, with the added Dub style deep bass and relentless drum groove, combined with Shaffer’s vocals, to create a sound like death on a holiday.
Written and produced by The Reds, the ride starts from the street fighting Wild and Little Cisco, through the hypnotic stroll of Ringing The Bell and Dum Dum Dice, and does not let up until the end with the grinding Dub laced Gunn’s Suicide, and slow death burn of Can’t Bring You Back Again, which feels like a dying man’s last breath.
Fugitives From The Laughing House is a straight forward raw nerve reflection of life in America today. These guys would not be out of place on a smoky midnight bill in the sixties with The Doors and The Velvet Underground — they have a timeless sound.
■ Tarock Music, September 30, 2007
