Red Sparowes

Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun

(Neurot)

Record Review by Alexis Roberts

Flashback to China in the last 1950s when they were still under the communist regime of Mao Tse Tung. In his plan to take a “great leap forward,” he insisted that the farmers begin to kill off all of the sparrows that they saw by banging pots and pans at them in order to scare the sparrows into staying in flight, so that they would die of sheer exhaustion. Once the Chinese farmers had killed off many of the sparrows, their crops were being devoured by locusts, the main prey of the sparrow. This phenomenon caused one of the worst bouts of famine in world history. Approximately 40 million Chinese citizens died of starvation over a 3 year period. As if that was not bad enough, Mao sent troops to the towns in search of a grain source that the peasants were assumed to be hiding. When no grain was found the soldiers tortured and killed off many of the peasants and others starved to death or resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Heavy shit, huh? Well, this is the theme on which Red Sparowes based their new CD. But if that is too much for you to think about and you just want to hear some intelligent music, I highly recommend Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun. Even if you don’t choose to follow the theme, the record is absolutely amazing.

There is something special about instrumental bands that sets them apart from every band with a designated “frontman.” Seeing as how Red Sparowes are strictly instrumental, there is a certain Marxist quality to their bands dynamic. After watching their promotional DVD, it dawned upon me that they aren’t just putting together music and hoping that they will get lucky if it sounds good. It’s as if they use a scientific formula to put together pieces that are not only well constructed but enjoyable for any listener. Plus the DVD wasn’t full of drunken, belligerent moments from the band members—which was a great change from the norm.

A lot of times people will find the lack of a singer downright boring, especially those with less of an appreciation for something atypical. Red Sparowes add their own flavor to the ever growing genre and they leave you with an album that has no dull moments for complaints to unfold about “why doesn’t this band have a singer?” They really don’t need a singer to get their point across.  While the music plays, the story unfolds. Every song title is a sentence about whatever part of the story that they are trying to tell. For example, the first song titled “the great leap forward poured down upon us one day like a mighty storm, suddenly and furiously blinding our senses.” kicks you into full gear right out of the gate, while the intensity sort of builds and climaxes during the bittersweet “annihilate the sparrow, that stealer of seed, and our harvests will abound; we will watch our wealth flood in.” and they leave us with “finally, as that blazing sun shone down upon us, did we know that true enemy was the voice of blind idolatry; and only then did we begin to think for ourselves.”

I believe that the Sparowes might just be throwing some current political commentary into the mix with those song titles… but let’s just make one thing clear: they want you to know that they are not communists.