Record Release - April 12th - Red Fang Murder the Mountains - review

I am not one to obsess too much over new releases.  Rarely do I feel the need to rush out and buy a record the first day it is out.  I generally prefer to buy my music directly from the Artist at their show.  My friend Rich on the other hand, was in the record store yesterday and saw Red Fang's new release, Murder the Mountains, and promptly snapped up a copy on vinyl.  He called me up to see if I would like to have a listening party, so I invited him to come visit the human depravity that is the man cave.

Now I had already listened to the album cause it was streaming on NPR for awhile (click on the album title above and you can stream the album on Bandcamp now, and also buy it there).  But to listen to it cranked on the turntable, hooked up to the amp and speakers I personally built while I was in school (a damn fine sounding set if I do say so myself), perhaps it would be different?  So Rich came over, we made some preparations, and spun that puppy up.

I looked over the packaging while Malverde played.  Malverde is a strong song, and a great lead to the album.  I love the chorus of this song.  "That's a trick, that's a trick, I can't believe that your falling for it."  Red Fang has been playing this song live for a while, and this song kicks ass.  Lead with a strong song, you want to pull the listen in.  Next up is Wires, the single that was released a while back, another strong song.  Rich and I both agreed how the vocal work bouncing between Bryan and Aaron gave a nice balance between the gritty and the clean and kept the tracks interesting to listen to.

Next is Hank is Dead with Aaron on vocals.  This is a solid song, but not one of my favorites.  The guitar solo seems somewhat out of place.  You also can hear Chris Funk's credited slide work on this track.  It adds a kind of nice finish, but the slide is buried for most of the track.  Then comes more Bryan (or Maurice on the album credits ;)  on Dirt Wizard, the main verse and chorus don't move me, but the bridge is real cool, though it is the kind of thing that blows you away live but does not transfer to well on an album.  It works better cranked on vinyl though.

Then there is the sludgy Throw Up, which shows Red Fang chugging along together to create a sort of wall of sound.  They are all playing unison and it just sounds big and mean, like their live show.   I like this track better than both Hank is Dead and Dirt Wizard, but the chorus is not quite as anthemic as the first two tracks on the side.  Time to flip the record over, remember flipping records?


The liner notes list Anita Robbison on guitar, Jenny Conlee on keyboards, and some one else who's name escapes me right now.  It is interesting who Red Fang thanks in the notes.  Missing are many of the main players in the Portland heavy rock scene.  I suppose Red Fang is not that tight with a lot of those making heavier music in town these days.

The second side is where this album starts to weaken.  My opinion is that this album is front loaded, with the best material appearing earlier on the album.  The second side starts with some trippy effects and kick ass drumming, and a fast past, almost punk rock type song, Painted Parade.  A short song, but not really that memorable.

Next track is Number Thirteen, with some nice rock tone guitar lead in, and back to some cleaner Aaron vocals.  Aaron's vocals sound so clean and polished on this album.  It is almost shocking when you first hear them, another cool chorus, makes this my favorite song on the second side of the record.

From here, there are three songs I felt are kind of ho hum about, it makes the record go out with a fissile rather than a bang.  Into the Eye is not a bad song, but is retreading ground already covered for the most part.  The Undertow starts out promising, and here is where you hear some of the guest musicians I believe.  The psychedelic guitar noodling, which is cool in my book, but not so much Red Fang's thing.  This is a cool song, and has sort of a plodding to it.  Though it does not seem to be quite as put together.

The final track is called Human Herd.  It almost doesn't sound like a Red Fang song.  A little straight forward for them, and the verse vocals are somewhat lack luster, and the chorus hook is not that compelling.

All in all Murder the Mountains is a solid album.  Most interesting though is that none of the songs have the epic, wide appeal of the song that brought Red Fang into the lime light, Prehistoric Dog.  The song and video really brought a lot of attention to Red Fang.  Prehistoric Dog is the sort of sing along, anthemic, head banding song every musician wishes they could crank out 12 of and make music for a living.  It makes me wonder if such a song is absent by choice, or just that creating a song like Prehistoric Dog is just not easy to do, and even less easy to repeat.  In any event, with a jam packed tour schedule over the next 6 months, it will be interesting to see what happens with Red Fang's popularity.  I suspect Red Fang will become "The" metal band to come out of Portland in years to come.