Album Review: Red Leather’s debut album, RENO, is a masterwork - and a howl from the depths of addiction and despair.

By keeping his true identity hidden from the world, Red Leather can pen songs that are hair-raising in their honesty. His debut album is one of the best LPs you’ll likely hear in 2023. 

Red Leather has shared his breathtaking debut album, RENO, as he’s poised to be one of 2023’s biggest success stories. 

The artist from Reno, who conceals his identity under a Stetson hat that is fringed so that it covers his face, has released some hard-hitting singles during the last 20 months. These have included tracks like ‘SINS,’ ‘DAKOTA,’ and ‘DOWN BAD,’ all of which are rousing and emotionally stirring slices of alt-rock. Despite his anonymity, these singles have helped Red Leather become a highly successful artist. ‘SINS,’ his most significant release to date, has gained over 16 million streams on Spotify alone, while songs like  ‘THE ONLY TIME IN RAINS IN HOLLYWOOD’ and ‘DEATHWISH’ have also racked up multiple millions. 

For Red Leather, all these achievements mark a major volte-face from his life before. While he hasn’t shared much about his identity, Red Leather has shared that he spent the years before 2022 addicted to alcohol and hard drugs, particularly cocaine. His addiction - which was at its worst when he moved from his hometown of Reno to LA in pursuit of his music dreams - culminated in some of the darkest moments of his life. In interviews, he revealed that he experienced a suicidal episode in 2021, followed by a heart attack in December of that year, then an overdose in Las Vegas the month after. 

From these dark moments, Red Leather realized that he needed to get sober, or he would die. For the last 20 months, recovery has been everything for this artist. Part of that recovery has been turning towards songwriting in earnest. 

The 14 tracks on Red Leather’s debut album, RENO, capture the white-hot immediacy of his encounters with addiction, despair, and destitution. 

‘DEATHWISH’ is a grungy, nose-punch of a track; it’s about “living fast” and coming close to death by doing so - and it sounds a bit like if ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’-era Rolling Stones met Queens of the Stone Age on an acid trip through the desert. 

The songs here either burn your skin with forthrightness (‘WATCH MY DADDY DIE,’ ‘PUSHERMAN’), or they capture your imagination with the artist’s incredible storytelling and his ability to paint compelling pictures of desperation (‘THE ONLY TIME IT RAINS IN HOLLYWOOD’). 

‘Sin,’ Red Leather’s best-known song, features his snaking, sinister guitar work at its best. The song beautifully captures the heady euphoria and suicidal deprivation that seems to come with living in LA. It’s a song about sin and redemption, the sacred and the profane. 

All these songs stem from actual experiences, making them even more incredible.