Like a bloody tooth.
I got into my current garage rock/punk-phase by means of the slowest, heaviest, laziest, and haziest subgenre of metal:
Stoner rock. Or doom metal. Or sludge something.
The point is they’re slow. And heavvvvvvvvvvvvy.
Among doom metal bands, Red Fang really isn’t so doomy. They’ve got some groove, some pep, some punch, something other than buzzy fuzz-guitars that bleed from your speakers like black molasses. If you want that, you can try Electric Wizard. I might have suggestions for them too, so stay tuned.
Personally, I find excessively doomy doom to be rather boring, so stumbling upon Red Fang was a welcome surprise. It maintains the energy and intensity and heaviness of doom, without caving in to screaming and monotonous melody or worst of all: the complete absence of a catchy hook.
Also! Their music videos are pretty good! As in, actually worth watching.
I know! It’s insane.
They’re usually pretty funny, got a little plot of their own and everything. Not to mention one had a guest appearance from professional Funny Guy Fred Armisen of Portlandia and SNL fame! That video is for the song “Blood Like Cream” and is NOT in this sampler but I’ll link it anyway just because I like you so much.
A lot of Red Fang’s songs are awesome, but here’s three of my favorites:
“Prehistoric Dog”, from Red Fang (2009)
“Hank is Dead”, from Murder the Mountains (2011)
“Cut it Short”, from Only Ghosts (2016)
“Prehistoric Dog” and “Hank is Dead” are kind of in the same vein. And for that reason, I hesitated to include them both, but I mean what the hell, if they’re representative of the band, they belong here. And I like them both a lot and didn’t want to have to choose between them. So there. Uncomplicated, swingy guitar riffs that are catchy enough to be pounded into your ears for four straight minutes with minimal transformation and still sound amazing. Drums that punctuate the guitar where necessary and do nothing more. Singing eh, lyrics eh, obviously not what this song is for.
“Cut It Short”, and Only Ghosts as a whole felt like a departure from this earlier style of theirs. I actually felt the lyrics a little bit. And maybe this is just a production thing, but all the instruments felt… cleaner? More separated? I don’t know shit about mixing or whatever, but this is the first time I didn’t feel like the guitar was used as the sole driving force of the song, nor as a bludgeon to the brains of the unsuspecting listener. There’s just more space here, more gaps in the noise, whole segments of the song that were (dare I say?) minimalist. This is a song that I struggle to call “doom” in that sense. I feel like this song just bears the vestiges of doom, in the barest minimum, somewhere. The tone of the guitar, maybe?
Another thing I don’t know shit about. I’m no musician.
And here’s “Blood Like Cream”. With Fred Armisen. And zambees.
Keep yer teeth bloody, I guess.
-Mans
Out the Other 