Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun

Infobox Album | Name = Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun
Type = Album
Artist = Red Sparowes


Released = September 19, 2006
Recorded = April—May 2006
Genre = Post-Rock
Length = 61:37
Label = Neurot Recordings | Producer = Red Sparowes, Tim Green
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|3.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3zfqxqwdld6e link]
*Drowned in Sound rating-10|9 [http://www.drownedinsound.com/release/view/8026 link]
*scenepointblank rating-10|9 [http://www.scenepointblank.com/reviews/1064 link]
*Sonic Frontiers rating-10|8.8 [http://www.sonicfrontiers.net/php/review-25.html link] |Last album = "At the Soundless Dawn"
(2005)
This album = "Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun"
(2006)
Next album = " Aphorisms"
(2008)

"Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun" is the second studio album by post-rock band Red Sparowes, released September 2006.

Despite having no lyrics, the album is said to follow the story of the Great Leap Forward in Mao Zedong-era China, more specifically recounting the Great sparrow campaign, a mass killing of sparrows (along with rats, flies and mosquitos) that fed on a portion of the harvest and were seen as pests. Peasants were encouraged to bang pots and pans to scare sparrows into continuing flight, eventually killing them from exhaustion. Whilst the harvest of the year after the campaign was larger, there was a massive rise in locust numbers in the late 1950s, as a result of the significantly lower population of sparrows, a major predator of the locust.

Along with other programs in the Great Leap Forward the great sparrow campaign caused widespread famine where, between 1959 and 1961, 38 million people died of starvation.

Track listing

# "The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like a Mighty Storm, Suddenly and Furiously Blinding Our Senses." – 7:00
# "We Stood Transfixed in Blank Devotion as Our Leader Spoke to Us, Looking Down On Our Mute Faces With a Great, Raging, and Unseeing Eye." – 8:55
# "Like the Howling Glory of the Darkest Winds, This Voice Was Thunderous and the Words Holy, Tangling Their Way Around Our Hearts and Clutching Our Innocent Awe." – 10:08
# "A Message of Avarice Rained Down Upon Us and Carried Us Away Into False Dreams of Endless Riches." – 7:11
# "'Annihilate the Sparrow, That Stealer of Seed, and Our Harvests Will Abound; We Will Watch Our Wealth Flood In.'" – 8:43
# "And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole." – 1:42
# "Millions Starved and We Became Skinnier and Skinnier, While Our Leaders Became Fatter and Fatter." – 9:55
# "Finally, as That Blazing Sun Shone Down Upon Us, Did We Know That True Enemy Was the Voice of Blind Idolatry; and Only Then Did We Begin to Think for Ourselves." – 8:03

Personnel

* Tim Green – Audio engineering, audio mixing and production
* Greg Burns – Bass guitar, Pedal steel
* David Clifford – drums
* Josh Graham – Guitar, Keyboard
* Bryant Clifford Meyer – Guitar, Organ, Piano
* Andy Arahood – Guitar