Finland's Red Eleven introduces their renewed sound with a new single, "Blackbird", rteleased through Inverse Records. Heavier, metal-flavored with a nod towards modern prog metal sound. Yet the song is clearly recognizable as a Red Eleven track. The lyrics reference a dark connection to the afterlife.

The writing for the new material took place during the pandemic, when Teemu Liekkala and Tony Kaikkonen started gathering more regularly to reflect what was next for Red Eleven. The motifs of the songs started coming together easily and the apocalyptic atmosphere of the pandemic set the mood right from the start. A pivotal role in the new sound of the band during the creative process was the fact that Teemu decided to drop his guitar to F-drop tuning. Riffs are therefore deeper than ever, but still catchy!

"Blackbird" was born rather swiftly. Teemu wrote most of the song in fifteen minutes and during that time Tony came up with the lyrics. The creation process was exceedingly fast, which may be the reason why the song is also faster than the past Red Eleven tracks.

The music video for the "Blackbird" single was crafted again in cooperation with Red Eleven's trusted director Anssi Korhonen. Korhonen describes the video making process: "The original plan for the video was quite different from the final product. For production reasons, we went back to the basics. Atmospheric, cinematic and twisted. A truly classic music video.”

"Director's original vision for the video was a bit more ambitious but we think the end result supports the song's story and atmosphere," states the band's bassist Petteri Vaalimaa. The video was shot at Vaalimaa's home in Varkaus.
 
"Blackbird" is available on digital platforms found here. Check out the official video below.

 
Red Eleven is an experimental metal band from Finland. The band was founded in 2009 and since then the group has released four albums and one EP. Red Eleven has over 1 200 000 total streams on Spotify. The band has toured extensively every year since 2011 and has been an opening act for bands like Papa Roach, Evergray and Katatonia, just to name a few. When the pandemic hit, Red Eleven went into songwriting mode and started working on a new album.

Photo by Panu Räsänen