By Brandi Shuler
RENO is an album written and performed by the artist known as Red Leather, who is a faceless country rock artist who mainly writes about his struggles and personal experiences with addiction.
The original album was released on November 17, 2023 but the deluxe version (RENO ALL IN) came out on October 24, 2025.
The album starts with the main character, Red, calling someone to tell them they’re leaving to go to Reno, Nevada. Every song following is about Red’s experiences with alcohol, religious guilt, incarceration, anger, homelessness, especially drugs, and many other themes that embody the emotional rollercoaster.
There are two songs in the middle of the list that serve as an intermission to talk about the place that Red is in, The Biggest Little City in the World and El Dorado. The artist has come out to talk about certain songs and what inspired him to write them and the history behind them including “Dakota” and “Sins.”
He wrote “Dakota” to be about an ex-girlfriend who tried to help him while he was struggling with drug abuse, but he had chosen his addiction over her help. The song named “The Only Time It Rains In Hollywood” is about Red walking through a city and witnessing different characters living on the street. Two of them are people trying to warn him against gambling and drugs because their lives have been ruined from them. The last character is supposedly the artist of the album (Red Leather) talking to Red (the character) about his life thus far.
I appreciate this album because of the flow of the themes, Red went from feeling immense guilt for what he’s done to admitting to wanting faith and to believe in something in the song “Desert Storm.”
Red Leather built an album full of songs full of tragedy and that threw shade on drug abuse (Pusherman, Down Bad) and ended it with a message advising his listeners against the bad decisions that are presented throughout the album.
I would give this album a 4.5 out of a 5 star rating. I can also appreciate that not every song is serious, he allows a few of his songs to stray from the story. They’re all good to listen to on their own and can be thrown into a playlist by themselves, every song can be listened to independently and doesn’t need the entire album to be enjoyed. I have been listening to Red Leather for almost a year and he has yet to get old to me.
Keep your eye on him this month, he’s releasing an album called TAHOE on February 27th!
Leave a Reply