Fangs Out
Speech Shadowing
Etxe Records
Over the last half of the decade – and I’ll use decade loosely since people always argue about when a decade actually starts and ends – there has been an increasing number of duos doing some stuff that’s been in my mind at least, sonically challenging and just very different. Just in the past 5 years or so, the White Stripes have put out some very strong guitar and drum-based singles and the Raveonettes have put out some consistently good albums, including Lust, Lust, Lust which they released not too long ago. Of course, there’s Hank & Cupcakes who we really dig. And earlier this year, One Day as a Lion, the collaborative effort between Rage Against the Machine lead singer, Zach De La Rocha and John Theodore released their impressive self-titled debut which I’ve been playing on repeat for the last couple of days. And then there’s this under-the-radar album, Speech Shadowing by the Toledo, Ohio-based duo, Fangs Out. Although all of these acts have some rather disparate influences there’s a common reactionary desire to attain the elegantly simple, to strip a song down to its simplest element to express a deeper truth. Just about every major genre in modern music has had a period where minimalism was in vogue – and in some strange way, it seems to be fairly cyclical. As the old saying goes, “what was old is new again.” But one can argue that what was old can be new, if done with a new twist.
Speech Shadowing starts off with some strangely gentle guitar chords before quickly turning into a high-tempo, high-energy, churning, droning, bass and drum heavy stomp that a maintains new wave/post-punk angularity that we’ve become familiar with. Like Wire and Gang of Four, some of Fangs Out’s lyrics are full of bitter and sarcastic irony that manages to poke fun while saying something that’s perversely true. In “Black Market,” Samantha Wandkte sings “Everything you’ve ever love has a price tag/Has a price tag” with a husky, boozy and bluesy voice that adds a layer of sleaze to the proceedings. And yet oddly, Wandkte sounds a lot like Chrissie Hynde’s of the Pretenders – the resemblance is quite uncanny, I think. But I dig Wandkte’s voice and find myself particular drawn to it in a way I can’t reasonably explain.
Musically, the songs on Speech Shadowing seem to draw heavily from the Raveonettes and the White Stripes – there’s a simplicity that can be mind blowing, especially if the songs are short. I don’t think there’s a song on this album that’s longer than 3 minutes or so, creating a rush of energy that comes and goes quickly. Granted, the songs aren’t terribly complicated or complex – the chord changes are fairly simple – this isn’t prog rock. But the songs on the album offer a quick cathartic rush that’ll make you want to get up and get funky during this relatively short and strangely exciting album.
Release Date June 29, 2010
Track Listing
1. Lustful
2. Black Market
3. Factory Model
4. Lap of Luxury
5. Unipolar
6. Polished Place
7. Politicouture
8. Heat
9. Omerta
10. Don’t Wake the Dead
