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Prince of Persia The Sands of Time Movie Review

Duvy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:09:58 +0000

Prince of Persia The Sands of Time Movie Review by: John Lee Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is a throwback to the action packed movie serials of the old days. Absolutely gorgeous CGI cinematography and special effects makes this a “must see” movie on anybody’s list. Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the adopted third son of King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) of Persia. As the movie starts the King gets word that a neighboring Holy City has accumulated powerful weapons of mass destruction that the people plan to use against Persia. As a preemptive move (sound familiar?) the King sends a small attack force, led by Dastan, into the city to capture the city and the weapons. After the successful capture of the city, the beautiful princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) and the hanging of the Mission Accomplished banner, King Sharaman arrives to lecture and scold the people. As a reward for his heroic behavior, the King also decides to give the captured princess Tamina to Dastan as a wife. But before the King can make it official he is murdered, and his son Dastan is framed for the killing. Dastan escapes the city with Tamina and a magical dagger that has time-travelling powers. The rest of the movie deals with the 2 outlaws trying to evade capture long enough to clear Dastan’s name and find the real killer of his father. Not only are they in pursuit by the King’s army, but others who wish to control the power of the dagger are also trying to capture Dastan and Tamina. Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is based upon a popular computer game created back in 1989. In that game you controlled a character (prince) through a series of increasingly difficult levels until you got to the end. This movie tries to give the same type of feel as playing a video game. Dastan and Tamina travel through a series of frenetic chase scenes where they must elude their followers. At the end of each “level” they find themselves at the beginning of a new challenge more difficult than before. This movie is visually stunning, just as you would expect from a Walt Disney movie produced by the now legendary Jerry Bruckheimer. He was the one that adapted that old theme park boat ride to the movies in that blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean. Now Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is not as good as Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s not that the story is lacking or that the movie doesn’t look spectacular. The missing ingredient is Johnny Depp. With Depp, Bruckheimer caught lightning in a battle. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies would not have been nearly as good without him and his many memorable quotes. Jake Gyllenhaal is a very good actor (Brokeback Mountain), but he just doesn’t have the charisma of Johnny Depp. But if you don’t try to compare the 2 movies then you will have a great time watching Prince of Persia The Sands of Time. Two performances worth singling out are those of Ben Kingsley as Nizam, Dastan’s uncle and Alfred Molina as Amar, the humorous leader of a band of outlaws. Kingsley is always great in whatever he’s in, and he gives the movie a sense of authenticity in every scene in which he appears. Alfred Molina is just damn funny. As the outlaw leader who makes a living racing Ostriches, he easily gets the movie’s best lines. Whatever you do, do not leave your seat during the last 30 minutes of this movie. The epic battle that ends this film is a gorgeous-looking action-adventure spectacle that you will not forget anytime soon. Supposedly, Jake Gyllenhaal trained with an expert for months in parkour to get through the finale. About The Author John Lee is the creator and owner of one of the Internet’s most popular movie review and trailer websites.

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Book Review: Vampire Academy Series – Book 3 – Shadow Kiss

Duvy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:18:39 +0000

Vampire Academy Series – Book 3 – Shadow Kiss By Ruby Groves Shadow Kiss is the third book in the Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead. This book is not the best book to read by itself, the first two books set the tone for this book, and having a little background knowledge is very helpful. But in case you didn’t read the first two here is a synopsis of them. The story is told from Rose Hathaway’s point of view. Rose is a Dhampire, training to be a guardian at St. Vladamir’s Academy. St. Vladamir’s Academy is a school for Moroi Vampire’s and Dhampire’s. Moroi are good Vampire’s that possess special magic, dhampire’s are Moroi guardians, they are half Vampire and half human. Rose is Lissa’s best friend and guardian in training. They have a special psychic bond, in which Rose can hear and feel all of Lissa’s thoughts. She can even get in her head to an extent where she has an in body experience inside Lissa. In this book, Rose and Lissa are in their last year at the Academy. Rose and the other novice guardian’s are going through their 6 week in field training experience. This is where the instructors stage attacks on Moroi and the novice guardians have to use what they have learned to protect the Moroi. Even though Rose is set to protect Lissa when they get out of school, Rose has been assigned to protect Christian for this exercise. Christian is Lissa’s boyfriend, and Rose and Christian don’t exactly get along. In this book though, they become better friends, and end up trusting each other and fighting side by side. The plot for this story starts out with Rose seeing Mason’s ghost. Mason is a friend of Rose’s, you could even say they dated a bit, but Mason died in the last book trying to fight Strigoi. Rose is confused and frightened by the sightings of him, and is determined to find the meaning of these sightings. It soon comes to light that Rose is seeing Mason because the Academy’s magical protection is faltering, and Strigoi have planned to attack the school, and they soon do. Rose and Dimitri learn this just in time to warn the school, but not before Strigoi get inside the barrier and declare war on the Moroi and dhampire population living in at the Academy. A huge fight breaks out between Moroi and Strigoi and many are killed. Dimitri, who is the love of Rose’s life, is turned Strigoi, and this sets Rose out on a mission to find and kill him. At the end of the book Rose drops out of the Academy and goes on a search for Dimitri. And even though the book leaves more questions than answers, I think it set the stage for the fourth book. All in all, this is the best book in the series thus far, as far as I’m concerned. The characters are developed a lot more, and the plot is well thought out and blends very well with the rest of the books. If you are interested in reading Vampire Academy, look forward to this installment, you will not be disappointed. Vampire Books

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Book Review: Vampire Academy

Duvy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:50:38 +0000

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead By Gail Pruszkowski I may not be a young adult but “Vampire Academy” is a book I could definitely sink my teeth into. It’s the first in a series by Richelle Mead. The author puts a new and unique spin on the vampire legends of old. Forbidden love, friendship, loyalty, romance, intrigue, this one has it all. St. Vladimir’s Academy in Montana is no ordinary school. It’s a boarding school for vampires where they are taught magic and teens who are half human, half vampire are trained to protect them. Lissa is a mortal Moroi Vampire Princess and her best friend and bodyguard is Rose Hathaway, a Dhampir, who is trained to combat the immortal Strigoi, who are dangerous rogue Moroi. Two years ago Lissa and Rose ran away but they were found and brought back in disgrace. The academy has become a dangerous place for them. Gossip, peer pressure and forbidden romance are the least of their problems. Lissa has secret powers that are growing and affecting her in different ways. Now she is getting anonymous warnings from someone who knows her secret. Rose and Lissa have a great relationship and it’s the focus of the story. The plot starts when the girls are caught and returned to the academy and it takes off from there. Good secondary characters and intriguing subplots make the pages fly. There’s a forbidden romance between Rose and Dimitri which adds another dimension to the story. Mead doesn’t talk down to her readers. She describes a dark contemporary setting and includes some strong language and sexual content that some readers might find offensive. It might be a supernatural tale but it deals with teenage issues that are relevant to most teens. If you like “Twilight” and “House of Night” you’ll probably like this series as well. It’s an engaging mystery with an unpredictable ending and it is definitely worth a read. Reading Level: Young Adult Publisher: Razorbill (August 16, 2007) ISBN: 978-1595141743 Paperback: 336 Price: $8.99 Gail Pruszkowski reviews for “Romantic Times BOOKreviews” magazine and her work has been published in the “Cup of Comfort” Anthologies. http://mysite.verizon.net/bookworm.gp/ http://write-juncture.blogspot.com/

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Review: Twilight – A Man’s Perspective

Duvy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:43:49 +0000

Twilight – A Man’s Perspective By Christopher McCollum To quote a good friend of mine, ‘Twilight swept through the ranks of my female friends like the bubonic plague.’ I first heard of this series of books two years ago, when my former English professor told me about this teenage vampire book that was sweeping across the country at such a pace, it made Harry Potter look like amateur hour. I found this rather distressing, because at the time… Harry Potter was one of my favorite series of books. However, since that time, the series has concluded, and I have changed my mind. Back to Twilight. I paid it no heed until just a few months ago, when I finally relented to the pressure from an old girlfriend, and decided to pick it up. I was slightly disturbed by this choice of mine, and went into it very reluctantly. The first thing I noticed… the story is told from the first person point of view, of a teenage girl. This does NOT bode well for my sake of mind, as pretty much the last thing I need is to be put into the head of a high school girl. My keen fashion sense, as well as my affinity for cooking, baking, romance movies, and gardening had already left a huge question mark hanging over my head, in terms of my orientation. It was this juvenile hesitation(not that I actually care about this. I find it all highly amusing when people assume I’m gay) that led to my initial reluctance to pick these books up. However, I finally got into it, and I began to enjoy it. I will digress for a moment though, and address some of the critics of Twilight and Stephanie Meyer. There seems to be a lot of you out there, and I simply have one thing to say, and this likely encompasses the grand majority of you, including Stephen King and his minions of doom and gloom. Literary snobs, the lot of you. As long as they have their dusty tomes of Don Quixote, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Machiaveli, and whatever else they deem necessary to applaud the genius of, they will cast judgment upon others for not having their level of taste in the field of books. Well, I’ve read my Mark Twain, and I’ve read Dumas, and Faulkner, and Shakespeare, and Hawthorne, and Chaucer, and I’ve even taken a very brief stab at Jane Austen. Some of those classic authors are total garbage, in my opinion. I’m specifically speaking of Faulkner and Hawthorne, who are the writers of such self-aggrandized drivel, it’s like trying to read a medical dictionary when the Sunday Comics would suffice. So I say this: I’ve read the classics, and if that’s what I am supposed to base my library on, I will likely never even bother getting around to filling the shelves. Reading a book is about two major things: You either do it for enjoyment, or you do it to learn something. When it comes to enjoyment, why does it matter how good the quality of the writer is? I understand and accept that Meyer is not the greatest writer, but honestly… who cares? I know you do, but that doesn’t matter. Tens of millions of people love it, and the only thing you’re doing is ostracizing them. Stephen King just had to go and open his obnoxious New England-accented mouth and rip Meyer. He must be a lunatic. I love his writing, but he is obviously lacking quite a bit in the common sense department. When teenage girls who love teenage vampire stories start growing up, and want a more mature story about monsters… who were they going to turn to? Stephen King would’ve been one of the most likely choices. Nix that, now. Way to dismiss an entire generation of fans from the genre of the supernatural. But, enough about that. Let’s get into my actual thoughts on the stories. I found them to be quite enjoyable, particularly Book 1. After I got used to the writing style – and quick side note here… I know these books are geared towards the young adult female audience, but is it really necessary to keep up the mantra of ‘He is like a living version of Adonis, a Greek god with a chest made of polished marble, a beautiful representation of magnificence and sex appeal…’? I had to stop reading that tripe on several occasions just to go look at Playboy and set myself straight. Back to the books now. Book 1 was enjoyable, and I found the characters to be quite entertaining. The story was interesting, and above all, kept me feeling like I was involved in it somehow. Book 2 started out great, turned into one of the most depressing stories I’ve ever encountered, and then finished a high note. It left me feeling like there would indeed be a happy ending, and that all was right in the world. Book 3 came around, and it was spectacular in parts, and mind-numbingly frustrating in others. I tore through it in about two days, and shook my fist of fury numerous times. Shortly after beginning Book 4, it hit me that because Stephanie Meyer is not a great writer, she messed up her timing with her characters. Typically, as long as the characters can keep me interested and sympathetic to their plight, I will keep reading. They did great up until the end of Book 3, when they began faltering at such a level, it would be totally inaccurate of me to say that I still had confidence in them. Then Book 4 came, and in approximately three chapters, made me hate everything about it and refuse to finish the series. Edward is the biggest wuss in the modern literary world, and Bella is a tweaked, self-absorbed twit with mental problems. I understand why a lot of women love Edward. He’s beautiful, he’s powerful, he doesn’t stand his ground, and he’ll let them get away with anything they want, as long as it’ll make them happy. He’ll sit at home while she’s off at a hepatitis-infused biker bar getting passed around like a beach ball. She comes home with smeared lipstick and tangled hair, and all he’ll do is ask her if anyone hurt her. He is an emasculated wimp of epic proportions. The opposite of a man’s hero, such as Jack McClain, Jack Bauer, James Bond, or Jason Bourne. Bella went from being a great person to be stuck in the head of, to being an insufferable twit with such a lack of sensibility that I wanted to draw the line FOR Edward since he was obviously too much of a weakling to do it himself. Don’t even get me started on Jacob Black. He breaks every tenet there is for being an honorable man: He refuses to acknowledge Bella’s request to stop hitting on her, he refuses to acknowledge that he has been beaten, he is overbearing and pressuring to the extreme, and more or less is the exact opposite of Edward. While Edward is a wimp, Jacob is a boorish lout. Why are the two main male characters polarized to such extreme dispositions of awfulness? All in all, it was a good series of books up until the end of Book 3. I never did finish Book 4, nor do I have any plans to. I know what happens in it, as the grapevine has expressed such information to me, but I have no interest in actually reading it myself. It is the perfect example, to go along with J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, of the author simply running out of good ideas, and deciding to finally just finish the story off so she can get back to real life. Again, keep in mind, that I am not refusing to finish it off due to some snobbish reason, it is simply because I hate what the characters turned into. I still think it was a great story, up until I refused to follow the characters any longer. Goodnight, and good luck. And if you wake up in a dreamworld where you’re in bed with Edward Cullen, slap him in the face and tell him to stop making the rest of the male gender look bad. Christopher McCollum is an owner and contributor to the materialistic technology and fashion review blog G.DEP. The blog features reviews of anything that strikes the fancy of the authors, which is mostly entertainment, technology, fashion, and general gripes about humanity. http://gaming.deadend-productions.com

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Review: Show and Tell, The Birthday Massacre

TristaLou — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:20:21 +0000

The Show and Tell Tour performance was hosted at the Marquee in Tulsa, OK. One thing I always enjoy about the Marquee is that it is just the right size, it allows for a good crowd of people to come, but also keeps it small enough to set that feeling that the band is only there to preform for you. I always prefer the smaller venues over the larger ones and especially the big arenas. This concert was ran on Assimilation night also and as always the Assimilation crew were very nice and helped me out when I needed it. This by far is one of my favorite venues to work with. The concert started with the opening band Dommin. I for one had not even heard their music. I only knew their name from being on this tour with the Birthday Massacre. I will have to admit that I was surprised at how good this California band turned out to be. They had a sound that was ll their own. Their stage set up was great, you can’t go wrong with roses. The band was dressed really well and went with their sound well. After their performance they came down to hang out at their booth. They were very nice and approachable. They all signed their autographs for me and took pictures with me.Over all I really enjoyed them very much. I Am Ghost followed and did not let people down either. I did enjoy them, but to be honest I was not so much into their sound as I was Dommin. But they were still a very good band. My husband enjoyed them more than I did. He had heard of them before and already knew that he liked their stuff. Then their was the headlining band The Birthday Massacre. They were really great! I had interviewed the singer before the concert and she said they would have a lot of energy and they did not let me down. They put their all into this performance. They were also very interactive with the crowd. Chibi (the lead singer) more than once reached into the crowd to grab a hand or hug someone. You could tell that they were one band that was there not only because they had to, but because they truly enjoyed the fans. This show was all for the fans, even if it came at the expense of the band being worn out and Chibi losing her voice even more than she already had. The band also portrayed a sense of just having fun with each other. At one point Rainbow (guitar) was pretending to pout because Chibi had accidentally hit him in the head and she hugged him and tried to comfort him. They just really showed that they had a lot of heart during their performance. After the show you would not blame them for going to the back and resting with all that they put into their show, but like troopers they came out for the fans and signed autographs and let people take pictures with them. Rainbow even continued outside the club when the club urged people to go so they could clean up. I recommend that you put this band on your must see list.

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DVD Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Duvy — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:18:23 +0000

2008’s remake of the science-fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still was not, when all things were said and done, a box office failure, but Fox had to be disappointed with its lackluster opening weekend, lukewarm critical reception and quick fade from theaters. The overall so-so response sums up the movie pretty well. The Day the Earth Stood Still is good, but not great. It’s entertaining, but not thrilling. It’s intriguing, but not exciting. In other words, it’s sort of like the original, only… not original. The Keanu Reeves/Jennifer Connelly flick is now out on DVD, and with it a few forgettable special features. There are some blink-and-you’ll-miss-them deleted scenes and a commentary by writer Dave Scarpa. The worst feature on the disc is the standard behind-the-scenes documentary, which is promotional in nature and tries very hard to offer as little useful information as possible over a half-hour period. The other featurettes aren’t nearly so bad, but still not memorable. There’s one that looks at the possibilities of real UFOs and alien life forms, though it’s nothing we haven’t heard before (most UFOs are military airplanes or something along those lines, given the size of the universe it only makes sense that there could be other life out there somewhere). “The Day the Earth Turned Green” is more unique, as it looks at the green initiatives the film production undertook to save costs and give back to the environment. I like the idea here, but the actual information provided in the featurette could be summed up in thirty seconds. Most interesting is a documentary that looks at the reimagining of the robot Gort, one of the most iconic sci-fi characters of the 20th century. It’s interesting to see just how many iterations Gort went through during pre-production before everyone decided that it was best to stick with something close to the original. There are some good factoids here – and thank God the other designs weren’t used. Overall, The Day the Earth Stood Still has some OK features, but the collection is pretty standard and unremarkable. Just like the movie, they are forgettable.

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Review: Riddick returns for a double feature in Assault on the Dark Athena

Duvy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:00:00 +0000

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was hailed by many, but played by few. Released for the Xbox, the game revisited Riddick’s early days, prior to Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, when the murderous antihero was still a common criminal. While reviewers loved the game, it wasn’t a huge seller. Developers Starbreeze AB and Tigon hope to change that with Assault on the Dark Athena (Xbox 360/PS3/Windows), which couples an upgraded Butcher Bay with a new campaign pitting Riddick against the mercenary crew of a prison ship. >

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Review: Dragonball Evolution could easily have dropped the ball, but didn't

Duvy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:45:00 +0000

There will be no hating on Dragonball Evolution in this review. The film has a lot stacked against it: It’s based on an anime series long past its height of popularity, and it always was second to the likes of Pokemon. It’s aimed at kids, so you never know how childish it might be. It’s got a lot of CGI and wirework, which is so passé. Yet Dragonball Evolution overcomes all of that to become a magical thrill ride, appropriate for kids but not condescending toward them. Goku (Justin Chatwin) has been training in martial arts up to his 18th birthday, as evidenced by a laundry-line balancing act reminiscent of classic Hong Kong movies like Iron Monkey. His duty is to protect Dragon Ball number IV, but his grandfather forbids him to fight in school, so he still gets harassed by bullies. He is able to dodge them and make them hurt themselves, in another scene reminiscent of Hong Kong cinema, where the noble hero will not strike against A-holes who deserve it. >

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Adventureland Movie Review

Duvy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:20:02 +0000

For fans of Twilight who can’t wait until the fall to see werewolves and vampires interact, there’s Adventureland, which stars that guy from Cursed and that chick from Twilight in what can only be described as a throwback to the classic comedies of the 1980’s. Jesse Eisenberg, who has also starred in The Squid and the Whale and Roger Dodger, stars as James, a college grad who finds himself strapped for cash in preparation for starting grad school in the fall. When all other avenues are exhausted, he takes a job at the local amusement park, effectively becoming a carnie for minimum wage. His eye immediately falls on coworker Em (Kristin Stewart), who is both open to the prospect of them becoming a thing while also deeply troubled by other issues in her life. There are no actual werewolves or vampires found in the movie. Read the full Adventureland movie review.

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Reviews: Red – Innocence & Instinct

Duvy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:39:40 +0000

By Duvall “Duvy” Gilchrist-Montgomery This is a very passionate rock album. Normally, I have to listen to an album quiet a few times before I love it, but this one caught me with the very first track. I don’t really like to compare artists, but Red mixes my favorite things about Linkin Park and Breaking Benjamin into one sound. My favorite Track so far is 06 – Confession (What’s Inside My Head), it’s a summary of what’s inside MY head and if I needed a representation to explain to you where I am I would put this song on a mix CD in the top slot. I find it funny that they covered Ordinary World by Duran Duran and worried too because it means time is slipping by fast enough that that song is coverable. Seems like just yesterday it was a comeback song, now it’s a covered song. All in all I plan to go out and buy the deluxe version of this album just as soon as I can. That’s saying something coming from me, you guys know I don’t buy CDs unless it’s worth the money. Track Listing: 01 – Fight Inside 04:08 02 – Death Of Me 04:17 03 – Mystery Of You 03:46 04 – Start Again 04:26 05 – Never Be The Same 03:46 06 – Confession (What’s Inside My Head) 02:44 07 – Shadows 03:21 08 – Ordinary World 04:56 09 – Out From Under 03:58 10 – Take It All Away 05:39 41:01 min Release Notes: http://www.redmusiconline.com/ Still riding the momentum of its huge-selling Grammy-nominated debut album End of Silence, Red returns with Innocence & Instinct, a provocative new album forged in a perfect storm of inspiration and catastrophe. From the literary spark of Dante’s Inferno to the bloody aftermath of a 75-mph highway crash, Red absorbed a flood of ideas and emotions that empowered the band to create next generation rock songs. Finding the sonic sweet spot where epic and primal converge, Innocence & Instinct features animated dynamics that super-charge its innocence vs. instinct theme. “Innocence & Instinct is about the duality of man,” explains guitarist Jasen Rauch. “The album examines the fight between our childlike innocence and the instinctive side that makes us do things we shouldn’t.” The group’s debut, which sold over a quarter-million copies and earned several awards and nominations, focused heavily on personal struggles. Bringing back Silence producer Rob Graves and mixer Ben Grosse (Sevendust, Disturbed, Depeche Mode), Innocence & Instinct goes a giant step further by tackling the fight itself. It’s about the dueling impulses that wage war within our souls. In writing the album, Red found Inferno to be an illuminating guide. The literary classic, which starts with Dante and Virgil standing before the Gates of Hell, illustrated ways in which the band might tackle deep issues in a more poetic way. And if Dante enhanced the storytelling, a highway crash in late ’07 accelerated the band’s emotional core. As the tour van smashed into a guardrail and violently slid sideways across the highway, the band experienced new heights of horror that they channeled into Innocence & Instinct. “It brought an intensity and depth that we couldn’t reach without going through this experience,” Rauch reflects. “In the months after the accident, it felt like everything was in overdrive.” “In a split second, it changed our lives,” adds six-stringer Anthony Armstrong, whose twin brother Randy handles the band’s basslines. Setting the tone early, “Fight Inside” rides beautiful piano keys to an unforgettable chorus as glaring agitation builds to a savage finish. The song epitomizes the album’s effortless transitions between simmering angst, melodic hooks and pretty major-key resolves, while its inner-monologue sets up the lyrical theme by cursing the frail duality of innocence and instinct. “Death of Me” furthers the first-person schizophrenia as vocalist Michael Barnes cries “You tear me down and then you pick me up” against a backdrop of deafening guitars, sweeping symphonics and nerve-rattling screams. “Shadows,” co-written by Ben Burnley of Breaking Benjamin, pushes against the darkness while “Out From Under” could be called Fight Club with guitars. “There are moments that switch between never feeling so close to someone to never feeling so abandoned, but that’s part of the human experience,” says Rauch. “These extreme feelings, these paradoxes, coexist all the time.” While several songs veer toward an internal apocalypse, “Never Be the Same” personifies Innocence with optimistic reflections poured out over lush fields of electric and acoustic guitars. The piano-powered “Start Again” addresses the conflicted remorse of a failed relationship, while “Mystery of You” ponders the inexplicable over industrial-strength loops and keys. Innocence & Instinct even features a juiced-up cover of Duran Duran’s utopian “Ordinary World.” Formed in Nashville, Tennessee over four years ago, Red made an immediate impact with its 2006 debut, End of Silence. The Grammy-nominated disc, featuring the radio hits “Breathe Into Me” (Top 10, Active Rock) and “Already Over” (Top 15, Active Rock), introduced the sonic layering, rich orchestration and visceral dynamics that became Red’s signature sound. The album steadily built momentum cracking the Billboard 200 a year after its release as sales steadily broke out to hundreds of thousands of copies sold. Not surprisingly, the album became a hit with other bands as well, leading to tours and shows with Papa Roach, Sevendust, Three Days Grace, Flyleaf, Buckcherry and Seether, among others. These opportunities contributed to the band’s impressive 500+ live show schedule between albums. Heading into Innocence & Instinct, Red had no shortage of creative sparks. A near-death accident ignited their emotions, a literary masterpiece spurred their creativity, peer support lifted their spirits, heavy touring empowered their performances and fans challenged the group to do even more to impact their lives. These experiences infused Innocence & Instinct with layered narratives, heightened sensibilities and an artistic boldness that dramatically raises the bar for new millennial rock ‘n’ roll. In Dante’s Inferno, the Gates of Hell read, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” But when the Gates finally face Innocence & Instinct, Hell won’t know what hit it.

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