Thirty years of River Runs Red hardly seems like enough, which I suppose makes it fortunate that the count will keep going. The debut album from Brooklyn four-piece Life of Agony, released in 1993 through a very-much-not-owned-by-a-major-label Roadrunner Records — though I seem to recall getting the CD from Columbia House, so distro was on point — is not shy about showing its age. Produced by Type O Negative‘s Josh Silver with that band’s former drummer, Sal Abruscato, on drums with a sound that will be recognizable to anyone who’s heard Bloody Kisses, which came out a couple months before — August as opposed to October — LOA‘s first record was ahead of its time in a few ways in the manner in which it borrowed toughguy swagger and thud from New York Hardcore (and I capitalized the genre name there because ‘Hardcore’ was a sixth borough back then) and blended it with an emotional fragility that aligned the band in perspective with the then-nascent sing-about-your-crappy-upbringing nü-metal movement as typified by the emergence of Korn‘s debut the next year and the boom it would help inspire through the remainder of the 1990s.

They could be brash like knucklehead forerunners Biohazard with the intense and maddeningly catchy opener “This Time,” “Respect” or the semi-rapped “Method of Groove” — the rap-rock thing, also just getting going back then; words like “cultural appropriation” didn’t exist yet — deeply weighted as in “Words and Music,” with its gang-shout chorus, righteously preaching in “Underground,” or they could showcase some genuine fragility, as also done in “Bad Seed” or “Words and Music” with their barely audible keyboard (a daring inclusion at that point) and soaring, wrenching vocal performances, particularly in respective second-half slowdowns, or “Through and Through,” the chorus of which seems to embody the ethic put forth in “Words and Music,” finding support in community, friendship, and volume. And they did it while remaining consistent with a thickness of sound and aggressive spirit that the band — then comprised of Abruscato, who stuck around for 1995’s brilliant Ugly before departing for 1997’s Soul Searching Sun (he now plays in A Pale Horse Named Death), as well as bassist/principal songwriter Alan Robert (anyone remember Among Thieves?) vocalist/keyboardist Mina Caputo (anyone remember Freax?), guitarist Joey Zampella (anyone remember Stereomud?) — would never have again. It was a one-time thing; a record made by kids that hit enough of a nerve that they came through here like two weeks ago touring it for the anniversary. There’s a big part of me that wishes I’d gone; I was all over River Runs Again in 2003 when they first got back after their breakup. Alas.

Running 13 tracks — 10 songs and three ‘skits’ titled after the weekdays “Monday,” “Thursday” and “Friday” in which an unnamed teenaged protagonist loses his job, girlfriend, gets shit from his nasal-voiced NY-accent mom, and, finally, slits his wrists in a bit of proto-ASMR that’s still jarring to hear — and 50 minutes, River Runs Red is definitely a CD-era progression, but the material invariably holds up as one would hope for a classic album, speaking to the point at which they were written and by now more than a little nostalgic, but still aurally forceful and heavy in its procession. Suicide is the theme, whether it’s in “River Runs Red” itself, or “My Eyes” — “Just give me one reason to live/I’ll give you three to die” — “Through and Through,” “Bad Seed” or pre-“Friday” finale “The Stain Remains.” Opening with its longest track (immediate points) in the 5:41 “This Time,” the language of depression almost immediate in the lyrics as delivered by Caputo, who channeled youthful disaffection into a rousing, dynamic and distinct performance, just as able to dwell in the quiet space of the intros to “Bad Seed” or “The Stain Remains” as the coursing shove of the title-track and the anthemic “calling from the underground” that set so much of the tone for the record. Whether brooding, raging or soaring, River Runs Red is a dense-toned gamut, and it remains visceral these three decades after the fact.

I hear it with different ears as an adult, and different ears as a parent, especially as relates to the conversations happening between the songs themselves, as with “Bad Seed” dealing with the fallout of a parent killing themselves and “My Eyes” a few songs later not seeing the devastating effect the speaker’s own suicide would have on those around them, or in the community celebration of “Underground” and “Words and Music” when taken together, the talk of brotherhood, etc., emblematic of the band’s roots in hardcore while taking at least in part a new direction in sound. Even the way “Bad Seed” and “This Time” form a narrative (reversed order in the tracklisting, but still) of a broken home and a kid who — even before the current teen mental health crisis — needed help and didn’t get it, further conveyed in the three skits, which like “Method of Groove” or “Respect” or even “Underground” are a hallmark of their day but interact with the surrounding material in complementary ways, forming the linear story that ends with “The Stain Remains” seeming to pick up where “Bad Seed” left off lyrically. Therapy for everyone.

I won’t claim to have been on board with it from the time of the release — my only excuse is I was 11 — but I recall as clearly as I can through what was a resoundingly beery fog hearing it with new ears when I got to college and was on staff at the radio station WSOU, where Life of Agony were a mainstay. And amid strong associations there of being a part of something bigger than my own ego, I have loved this album deeply. Between the aforementioned River Runs Again 20 years ago, the major-label flirtation of 2005’s return LP Broken Valley or the seeming acceptance of where they came from in their most recent work — 2017’s A Place Where There’s No More Pain and 2019’s The Sound of Scars — the legacy of their debut looms significantly in the arc of their career as more than just memories of who they were when they started. It’s not timeless and it would be wrong to expect it to be, but there was precious little like it when it came out and 30 years later I’m just thankful it exists at all to be revisited like old friends and, maybe, family.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

A frustrating morning after a frustrating week with which I would be glad to be done if it being the weekend made any difference in terms of relief, which it doesn’t.

And rather than go on, I’m gonna leave it there this time. Thanks for reading, have a great and safe weekend. Next week is full and I’m already behind on news so there you go. Wa. Hoo.

FRM.

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Tags: Brooklyn, Life of Agony River Runs Red, New York City, River Runs Red, Roadrunner Records

This entry was posted on Friday, March 24th, 2023 at 11:37 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.