Red Fang - Murder The Mountains

Red Fang – Murder The Mountains

Scheduled Release Date: 12^th  April 2011 on Relapse Records

I’m quite a fan of Red Fang so I’m just going to dive right into this. Red Fang have matured and boy is it impressive. Murder The Mountains is their second album after the great success that was their debut, and you can tell straight away the sound has grown. Don’t in any way take that as something to be apprehensive about.

They start off quite shakily with this album with “Malverde” and I'm not going to lie, I was worried. It seemed lackluster and dull. But that dives right out the window as soon as the phenomenal “Wires” kicks in. This is definitely the best song on the album and possibly the best song they’ve done. It has fantastic groove to it and brilliant sounding vocals bursting through the mix with a great melody to drag you into a really nice, dark song. The mid section is a dark and entrancing part and it really hits you how much this band has grown as soon as that starts. And it doesn’t stop there. The newly revived “Hank is Dead” is next up and that comes bursting through with just as much groove, and sounds fantastic. This breathes new life into the song that got them out there and brings it back really nicely with a smooth, nice melody.

Then in bursts “Dirt Wizard” with one simple aim: to completely kick your ass. This is a very heavy, groovy, meaty song that bursts in straight away and hits you in the face with a simple groovy riff and harsh vocals that would scare away a prehistoric dog (har har.) “Throw Up” follows next with a really slow, dirty heavy sound and those harsh vocals again. Listening to this song you can really hear an influence from The Melvins with nice dirty, groovy riffs and decent melodies coming out in between too.  It suddenly speeds up halfway through too and really changes the whole mood of the song and really hits that Melvins sound here too. It’s like it was direct from The Melvins themselves with this track.

“Painted Parade” is next up and bursts right in with powerful drumming and fast riffing and vocals that almost remind me of The Offspring. This is a very good song though and very groovy despite its speed. It bursts through its short length and into “Number Thirteen.” This is groove at its finest, the bass line beating through alongside the drums and the lead guitar adding some nice melody to it. The vocals continue to excel on this track and weave wonderfully with the riffing to create a great mix. “Into The Eye” is another song that powers out of the blocks with heavy riffs and harsh vocals.  This use of harsh and melodic vocals differing between songs breaks up the flow nicely and forces you to listen to this very closely and take it all in, and its really good.

“The Undertow” is a wonderfully powerful track and comes slowly grooving in with a really nice bass line and uses quite melancholic vocals to add a very dark mood to this track.  The final track is “Human Herd” and is very groovy and dark and a great way to close the album with a real sense of maturity to it. The melodic vocals weave with the riffs wonderfully and it sounds fantastic.

            Red Fang are a band that had a lot of potential to them, and they have continued to grow from it and so far have not disappointed. This album gets off to a shaky start but after that it grooves right through and never loses its grip on you. This is another fantastic Red Fang album that will help this band hopefully reach new heights again, and continue to breathe their fresh air into a still very alive genre.

8/10


Bryan Shuttleworth