In the shadow of the stones beneath a boiling crimson sky he speaks the thousand names of the eldest god of all.
The arcane, guttural sounds eat away the flesh of his mouth with each profane syllable pronounced. Blood pours from his disintegrating lips but he never falters in his invocation.
This is his only purpose, all he was ever made to be, the Caller of the Divine. He weeps with joy as the clouds are rent above him; his exposed teeth and tattered tongue forming the final words. Ichor rains down on his upturned face and his eyes explode as he gazes upon the convulsing, churning magnitude of God – the world eating legion of tentacles and teeth, the malice beyond all understanding. Blinded, broken and fulfilled he falls to his knees, the words of the Red Verse, the multitudinous names of the Almighty have been spoken…
For more than twenty years Edinburgh’s Dog Tired have been honing their craft, sharpening the cutting edges of their riffs and fine tuning their engine of destruction. In a perverse rejection of accepted patterns they have only become heavier with every release, their creative fires burning hotter and higher. And all the touring across the UK and Europe, all the festival appearances and four previous albums, they have all lead to this – to The Red Verse. This is the sound of Dog Tired becoming all they have promised and delivering an album of colossal weight and power, a set of songs with depth and stature that can trade blows with any name you care to mention. From the lead weight grind of ‘Fracture’ to the layered evolution of instrumental ‘The Pillars Of Phobos’, the vicious, irresistible drive of ‘Of Severed Gods’ to the grand, punishing finale of ‘The Red Verse’ itself, there is no chink in the armour of this album; no moment where the music is less than captivating, where the songs demand any less than every ounce of your goddamn attention.
Dark riffs with cavernous grooves, thunderous drums and fiercely melodic vocals – Dog Tired are armed to the teeth with an intimidating array of metal weaponry. The Red Verse is an album of brute force combined with engulfing atmosphere and thrilling storytelling delivered with consummate skill and musicianship.
The Red Verse was recorded at Nameless City Sound studio in Lauder with King Witch’s Jamie Gilchrist and has the world class sound to match its world class set of songs – rich, warm, organic, textured and above all monstrously heavy. The cover and booklet art gives the album its final touch of class, the images being created by King Witch vocalist Laura Gilchrist. Dog Tired will publicly unveil this magnificent chapter in their career with a special launch show at La Belle Angele in Edinburgh. If you can be there, be there, but under no circumstances allow the incredible album that is The Red Verse pass you by.