RED FANG - Only Ghosts

October 7, 2016, 7 years ago

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Greg Pratt

Rating: 7.5

review heavy metal red fang

RED FANG - Only Ghosts

Dig that groovy cover art, Portland's Red Fang totally embracing the aesthetic their cool, driving rockin' metal goes hand in hand with. The sound at hand here is equal parts stoner rock, Kylesa sludge, and Mastodonian-lite prog, even though there's really nothing progressive about this simplistic groove-laden biker rock. But its biker rock with brains, like Alabama Thunderpussy with a more accessible edge for the hoary indie-metal types. 

On Only Ghosts, the band's fourth album, they are locked into the sound they've always slightly frustrated me with by chasing but never quite catching before: after a so-so opener in “Flies,” they nail it with “Cut It Short,” the band locking into a hyper groove and riding it all the way home. It's a move they revisit two songs later on “No Air,” the band really settling into a sound that is strictly Red Fang, and is strictly rockin'. Later, “Not For You” is like Mastodon gone ultra-streamlined and ultra-fun, but with heaviness intact, while “The Smell Of The Sound” pulls things in a bit as the band explores their sludgier, and trippier, side. Red Fang have always been a slightly hard band for me to warm up to, but on Only Ghosts, their sound comes together to a fully enjoyable, and totally rocking, whole, one that I have no problem at all cozying up with to get to know a bit better.



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