“Northern, loud, and emotional” is the Red Remedy strapline, and if you needed proof that it’s not just a tagline, The Line, the five-piece’s new single, out on the 17th June, is exactly that proof. Heavier and more immersive than anything they’ve put out before, which honestly didn’t feel like it should have been possible, but here we find ourselves.
A single cymbal stroke opens things up, followed almost immediately by a riff that gets in your brain and stays there; addictive, gritty, with the bass drum teasing in and out underneath it. There’s a touch of Foo Fighters in that opening build, that sense of something enormous gathering itself before it lets go.
And then it does. With the melody arriving fast, suddenly you’re somewhere high above the clouds, Syren Jensen’s vocals soaring effortlessly over the top of it all. And this is the real achievement of ‘The Line’, Zach and Dean’s guitars are heavy, gritty, unrelenting, and yet Syren’s voice stands shoulder to shoulder with all of it, never shouty, never overpowered, never fighting for space it shouldn’t have. That balance is genuinely difficult to pull off, and Red Remedy make it sound effortless.
Lyrically, this is heartbreak laid bare; “you’ve got me bleeding,” “falling never felt so sweet,” and the repeated, aching question, “am I crossing the line?” If you’ve ever loved someone past the point of sense, presented your heart to someone not knowing the outcome, you’ll know exactly what that question feels like from the inside. There’s a moodiness here that recalls Linkin Park at their most introspective, with flashes of Wolf Alice, No Doubt, a more tender-edged Bring Me The Horizon, and Bad Omens running through its veins.
Liam Robson’s drums are the track’s engine throughout, pulling back to let the riff breathe, then driving everything forward again with real urgency when the track demands it. The structure plays with pause and release beautifully, that central riff returning again and again, dropping the track back down before launching it back to full force, guitar countermelodies peeking over the top of a wall of sound that’s built for getting totally lost in.
The ending is abrupt, almost startlingly so, but it works, leaving an after silence that still seems to echo.
The Line is built for late nights, low lighting, and something dark and strong in your glass. It’s also unmistakably built for the stage, and is going to land hard live. Loud, immersive, vulnerable, and completely unafraid of its own intensity; exactly what it promises. And, it would seem, exactly what Red Remedy do best.
