2007

From Virus ! Magazine, ( Germany) February 2007

DEEP RED- RELICS OF DESIRE
Back in 1996, Deep Red caused quite a murmur across Europe and the Americas when it was announced that they were the first singing to the legendary Project Pitchfork's home-grown label, Candyland Entertainment. Despite this great source of promotion and a subsequent tour with Pitchfork, by 1999, Candyland had disintegrated and this Florida trio surprisingly found themselves without a label to call home. However, Deep Red went on to found their own label, spawned on their own two more full-lengths, and now in 2007 we come upon their fourth disc, “Relics Of Desire”.
Fronted by the enchanting Aradia, their sound succinctly complimented Pichfork's nineties period electro-goth. Though their former benefactors diverged towards a more rock-oriented sound since those days, Deep Red instead honed their own motif using their debut as their sound's foundation.
As if translating Dead Can Dance's medievalism into an ethereal darkwave dialect, their creations feel at once ancient and futuristic. On one side, you get propulsive electronic arrangements complimented by their velvet-voiced siren, Aradia.
In terms of percussive panache, "I'm In You" stands as a great example of “Relics Of Desire's” modern instrumental facets. Like a train-ride across an electro-industrial plain, bass and snare puff and clack with locomotive speed, sending an electric arpeggio crackling over flanged hills and past wailing digital choirs. This rippling dance floor jaunt is complimented by Aradia's soaring voice, her bewitching presence flowing seamlessly from a feline swagger to a smooth croon.
A digital drum set gallops wild to a fuzzy arpeggio shimmer within "Incubus My Love". Speckled by violin arrows, Aradia's voice wavers above like a tower-mounted crimson silk war banner, seductive yet deceptively sinister. As for their more intimate moments, they are also quite fulfilling and perhaps a bit more fleshed out and vivid that their club-friendly siblings.
"Relics Of Desire" finds programmer DC Astro getting his chances to strut out into the vocalist limelight. Complimented by a suite a tender strings, his foggy baritone is peppered with the soft lament of cello and violin, while a gentle snap of snare provides a slight hint of percussion. Mixed with the twinkle of starry synth, its cinematic ambitions are further fulfilled by Aradia's sublime spectral wail within its chorus.
Another pleasing example from their ethereal edge is "Dark Domain". It opens with the bleak bale from their hired string concerto, and as a harpsichord's spidery chime crawls in, lending the song somewhat of a baroque veneer. Wooden drums enter to skip and stutter, but like the tide, the string section ebbs out to sea, only to return to espouse pointed symphonic accusations at its conclusion.
The disc concludes with a nice footnote; returning to their roots, Deep Red resurrect two of their best pieces from their debut, “The Awakening”. While the original was quite captivating, the swirling whisper to heartfelt dirge of "Red" has been amplified via the echo of terse tribal drumming and a lively arpeggio.
As for the sultry slither of "Holy You", it appropriates the original's seductive vocal flow and Arabic angles, adding only a few string and drum ornaments to its proven formula. These recreations are rather faithful to the originals, but they serve as a reminder of Deep Red's steel-strong roots, and why they enchanted Pitchfork in the first place.
Though their sound hasn't drastically evolved since their arrival, their independent persistence is quite commendable, and it certainly would be nice to see another label offer them solace and distribution in the future - they deserve it. - Vlad McNeally, 16 Feb 2007

From GOTHIC PARADISE, (USA) February 2007

DEEP RED - RELICS OF DESIRE

It has been a very long wait, but we finally have the fourth album from this group after their slight reformation. This is the first album with Aradia on lead vocals and I have to say that she does a very great job bring her excellent voice to the band while maintaining much of that same style that we've grown to love from Deep Red over the years. The album is released in a simple, but beautiful digipack containing eleven excellent tracks, including newly recorded versions of two of their classic hits "Red" and "Holy You".
Kicking off the album is the powerful mid-tempo, yet dance-friendly ballad "Coldness” which features a combination of male and female vocals. This blend is something new and powerful that fans should really enjoy on this track. This dark and brooding mood permeates many tracks on this disc for an excellent gothic style in the vein of all the great gothic classic novels and love stories. This is portrayed in the way the track list is displayed on the disc in the form of a letter to "Incubus, My Love" and signed "Missing You Eternally - Deep Red". Maybe a little cheesy, but it portrays the mood of the album well. "Love Decays" is another piece in a line of moving ballads that remain dance-friendly, but very moody and beautiful with Aradia's sweet vocals. However, not many tracks bring out this brooding style like the title track with it's dark, pulsating synths and angst-ridden male vocals.
For fans of the harder-hitting tracks, there are plenty of these on this disc, starting with "Burning" with it's driving percussion and pulsating layers. The moody, yet up-beat piece "Incubus, My Love" is a fast-paced driving piece with the lyrics portraying something of a longing for love or something else in a vampiric world. A favorite driving piece on this disc is "Blood Gets In My Eyes". After a long intro of driving percussion, it builds and builds to include Aradia's strong and soothing vocals. While this may be the climax of the album, there is still plenty of great material left on the album.
After the beautiful instrumental piece "Dark Domain", the album wraps up with two great tracks from their first album, re-recorded with Aradia on vocals. Other than that the pieces are pretty much the same great tracks that we've grown to enjoy over the years. This is a great disc and I'm very pleased with the continued solid direction of the band and with the addition of Aradia as the new vocalist. Be sure to check them out! - Jacob Bogedahl

From Gothtronic Magazine, (Netherlands) February 2007

DEEP RED- RELICS OF DESIRE

Deep Red exists for more than 10 years and was the first band that got signed at Candyland Entertainment, the label of Project Pitchfork. Despite the eventual promsising start for their debut album it hasn’t brought that much for the band as the label went down after some time. Deep Red however continued and released tow more recordings on their own. Now, ten years later this American trio is back with their fourth recording. The music of Deep Red consists of uptempo gothic-electro and darkwave, in atmosphere comparable with for instance Collide or Butterfly Messiah, nowadays with heavenly vocals by Aradia. Sometimes very convincing, such as in ‘Burning’ or ‘More of the Same’, but more often very much cliche-gothic, such as in ‘Incubus, My Love’ and ‘Blood Gets In My Eyes’. After the instrumental track ‘Dark Domain’, at the end of the cd with ‘Red’ and ‘Holy You’ two more songs that were on their debut as well, now with vocals from Aradia. ‘Red’ comes close the atmosphere of Dead Can Dance, only approached out of the electro genre. This is nice music in the 1996 timespan, but not for 2007- TekNoir

Grade: 6.5

Deep Red's comment: Guess you can't win them all!!

From Side - Line Magazine, (Belgium) May 2007

DEEP RED- RELICS OF DESIRE

This formation will for sure going down in history as the supporting act of Project Pitchfork in 1996. More than 10 years later they’ve just released their 4th full length album. “relics of desire” comes nearly 5 years after the “chimera” album and features a new vocalist as the main change in the line up. Musically speaking DR holds on their good taste for electro-pop music, which they pushed in a heavier way. The debut songs are well-crafted songs full of power and revealing a different approach in making synth-pop music. The new vocalist especially illustrates all her capacities on the cool “More of the same”-cut. Some of the other songs bring duo vocals (female and male) just adding some more energy in the vocal lines. After this excellent start (featuring other pieces like “Coldness, burning” and “Blood gets in my eyes”) they progressively move into quieter fields (cf. “I’m in you”) to finally end in a darker way with the cool “Holy you”-piece. This is for sure my favorite DR-album to date and yet I’m missing some details to make it become a real great piece of music! (DP:7)DP.