Red Fang – Arrows
Release Date: 4th June 2021
Label: Relapse Records
Pre-Order
Bandcamp
Genre: Stoner, Rock, Alternative, “beer-crushing, zombie-killing, air-guitar-contest-judging metal”.
FFO: Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch, Orange Goblin.
Review By: Kenny Newall
Red Fang’s long awaited Arrows is an absolute shagwaffling bollockmonkey of an album (in a good way). Opening dirge, Take It Back, though, is an absolute shagwaffling bollockmonkey of a song (in a bad way).* But this is the only stumble in an otherwise Snaggletooth buckled belter of an album. With riffs so big you could raise them up in a circle to be worshipped, drums so big yet full of space you could float them on water and smash an iceberg, bass so rumbling that you can tell this band is still hungry 16 years in, and vocals so…well the vocals aren’t really the point. They’re almost like another rhythm section, complementing those all consuming riffs.
So like any band who wipe their punk influenced snot on a stoner hankie, tempos range from Sabbath doom to Pistols boom, which is to say there’s plenty of variation, but without straying too far away from mid-tempo, keeping within the head nodding range throughout. And your head will nod throughout as the riffs seem MSG laden with a demand that your neck shake your noggin. And the likes of My Disaster will also demand the same of your whole body, though as I’m now in my middle years, I delegate most of that type of thing to my elbows.
And to sum it all up is the brilliant Whitey McConnaughy directed video for title track, Arrows. Like the song, the album can be intense and heavy, but it’s also fun and life affirming. It grooves like 180 gram vinyl, making you grimace and wink at the same time, sending decidedly mixed signals to anyone sharing public transport with you as you let your headphones engulf your world and allow Red Fang to give you music that brings to mind deserts and crashing waves and forests. Somehow they do and somehow it works. Well actually, not somehow it works. It works because this is a damn good band who deceptively and knowingly use simple techniques and structures to give my elbows something to get excited about as my head nods in agreement. Very much recommended.
*(The nuances between good and bad are many and varied, but it basically boils down to which way you’re facing).
(4.5 / 5)
