Red Sun Rising captures raw energy of live shows on ‘Thread’

Hot on the heels of the March 30 release of its sophomore album, “Thread,” Akron, Ohio-based rock quintet Red Sun Rising will perform at the Knitting Factory on Friday with Them Evils and Elephant Gun Riot.

In a press release, lead singer Mike Protich said though the band played 140 shows as part of it last tour, it wasn’t until “Thread” that he felt Red Sun Rising had become a band.

“The growth and evolution of RSR that you will hear in our sound and our songwriting builds on our ‘Thread’ mentality (songs that people can love and sing with us but don’t fit a mold),” he said. “We aren’t chasing trends and never will.”

Compared to the band’s debut, “Polyester Zeal,” “Thread” feels rough around the edges, in a good way, better capturing the raw energy of a Red Sun Rising show. This time around, the band also felt more confident in experimenting with instruments and genres that didn’t appear on “Polyester Zeal.”

“That’s what’s great about the band now, the fact we’re not sitting anywhere, exactly, in terms of genre or anything like that,” Protich told Billboard. “That’s what ‘Thread’ stands for. It’s not one thing, but we, the band, are the thread that unites it all.”