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Relapse Records
by Craig Hartranft
10.09.2013
Returning to melt your speakers and turn your brain to mush are heavy rockers Red Fang with Whaled and Leeches. From start to finish, the Fangsters want to thump you upside the head with their disturbing mixture of heavy, stoner, and sludge rock.
Although in the case of Red Fang 'sludge' doesn't necessarily refer to slowness, but rather the dense heaviness that swarms around every song. So much so it basically tackles the vocal line, wrestles it to the ground, and then holds it down by the neck with it's boot. Actually, most songs have a brisk, but not racing, tempo throughout.
Exceptions can be found in the large majority of Dawn Rising, equally heavy, gritty, and sullen, and also Every Little Twist and Failure, likely the heaviest and most dense song here. The song would likely put the beat down on Red Fang's closest peers like Graveyard, The Sword, Clutch, Kylesa or the mighty QOTSA.
While the vocals seem either afterthought or a causality of the heaviness, so also are guitar leads. If anything you won't remember any of them. You will remember, however, the wall of riffage that kicked their ass. If you like all things heavy and pummeling in your rock, Red Fang has a boulder of an album they want to drop on your head and hit with a sledge hammer.
If you like all things heavy and pummeling in your rock, Red Fang has a boulder of an album they want to drop on your head and hit with a sledge hammer.
This experience deserves mention for one very good reason: Finland's One Desire is one of the best classic AOR melodic hard rock bands in the genre and, perhaps, the world, right now So, I also apologize, in ... [ Read More ]