Vendetta Red is one of those bands that doesn’t dive into a sub-genre pool. Rather, they test the waters of a few and then wade around knee-deep in them. Cut Your Noose is a good example of this; they occasionally taste of screamo, but Zach Davidson doesn’t want all his lyric writing talent to go to waste, and they don’t have enough heavy riffs to be considered hard rock. They just weren’t considering your ability to sort them when they make their music, but that’s the way it should be done, and this EP is a great example of that artistic freedom.
“Three Chord Valentine” opens the EP, and if you only listened to the first verse, you may mistake them for the most troubled emo band you’ve ever heard. The lyrics get more mentally stable as the song goes on, however, and the chord progression makes for a catchy rock track. It’s the cleanest mix on the EP, too; all the tracks afterwards suffer from that limited-studio-time sound.
“Por Vida” is one of the two tracks that can be considered early versions of the song, as they were recorded again for later albums. The track is less impressive overall in comparison to the first one, but it may be the favorite track of screamo fans as far as this EP goes.
Another track that was recorded again on a later release, “All Cried Out” has riffs that sound similar to “Three Chord Valentine”. It suffers from an almost annoying introduction that consists of only vocals and only a bit of guitar. Luckily, the rest of the song loses the vocal tone and gains instrument layers.
“The White Nightmare” is an unusual track for the band because none of their albums have a fully acoustic track, or even a song that comes close to how this one sounds. The song seems to only have three layers: main vocals, acoustic guitar, and backing/alternate vocals. On top of that, the guitar playing is rather unique. I doubt I’ll ever find anything that sounds like that with the interesting lyrics to go with it.
The problem with Vendetta Red is that their material can be pretty hard to find. Odds are you won’t hear any of these songs unless you ask the right person. Part of the reason why this is the case is that they broke up in 2006, but three of the original members went on to form Sirens Sister, so if you like the music and want to see them live, not all hope is lost… If you can make it to the Seattle area.