Review #188: Fangs Of a T.V. Evangelist - Fangs Of a T.V. Evangelist (2010)

FANGS OF A T.V. EVANGELIST

Year: 2010

Genre: Sludge Metal/Post-Punk
Label: We Empty Rooms Records
Tracks: 6
Length: 38 Minutes
Style: Angry
My Rating: 7/8

Fangs Of a T.V. Evangelist is that lil' band that jush KEEPS ON GIVIN'... new names, that is. Their earlier title was "Fangs Of Satanic Soccer Mums", and I've got a hankerin' it's not the LAST time they're gunna change their name, either! Anyways, FANGS OF A T.V. EVANGELIST is the band's third release, the two albums before it are "Fangs Of", "Fangs Of Satanic Soccer Mums", and this is the newest album which just came out this August. The band is from Melbourne, Australia, and their style of music is slow and monolithic yet punkish, not unlike the Melvins, who they are very much inspired by. They put this album up for free on the internet to advertise the fact that it's out on vinyl, and maybe I can convince my brother to buy it for me or something. Time for the review, friends...

1. Spider Spider
The immediately starts off with a droning, pounding one-chord riff and simple drumbeat. There's a little bit of a portentous lead guitar melody starting a few seconds into the song. Jace (the singer and guitarist of the band) begins singing around a minute and a half. After two verses, the song goes into a more urgent chorus with a more aggressive feel to it. After the second chorus, the speeds up a little bit with a really speedy bassline and the vocals in this part are sorta growled rather than sung softly. Good drum beat in this part, also. There's a few false stops in the song before returning to an instrumental outro. The song stretches all the way out to a good near ten minutes long!

2. We Shall Rule
The bass and drum attack on here sound even more menacing! There's a bit of wisping, icy lead guitar floating and disappearing around as well. Just before the first minute, the main guitar explodes into an electrifying explosive riff. Jace's singing sounds about as dark as it gets without sounding ridiculous and it does fit the thick, dense sound of the song... so much rock n' roll there's barely any room to breathe! Three and a half minutes in, a really amazing solo is unleashed! And after that, there's a really good riff for the mid-section of the song... it sounds kind of uncertain, but not necessarily in a negative way. Jace breaks out of his angry-sounding voice to sing more melodically on this part, which I have to admit sounds just a TEENY bit cheesy when the backing vocalist starts coupling that with his 'brutal' yells, but all of this is overshadowed by the immense amount of creativity that's in this song, so who gives a shit, right? The song slowly collapses into noise and chaos and pounding drums and snarling random guitar notes that twist and tangle like anacondas (GET IT? GET IT?). Man, what an awesome song! That's the end of Side A.

3. A Pool of Water Is God
Now, for the other half of the album. Sounding a little more up-beat already, the beat is significantly faster, and the guitar riff sounds a bit cockier. After the second verse, the tune cuts to a bass-only part, and you hear quieter snarled lyrics in the background. After that there iz also a guitar solo. The guitar sound is real nice on all of these songs.

4. Boules
Boules... "bowels"?? "Balls"? Jeez, I shore am confused at ther moment! The intro part sounds like something straight outta "Bullhead", and if you are in the band it's up to you whether or not you want to be flattered or offended by such a comparison. But there's a lot of alternating between loud guitar-dominated parts and more subtle bassy sections. That guy Jem seems to be a real master of the drumset from what I'm hearing on this album! Then there's another part with a lead guitar section that sounds like ambulance sirens, hehe.

5. Anarchists Who Can't Do Manual Labour
Another favorite of mine on this album. The song is made up of two parts. The first part is pretty fast and has a speedy bass melody, a really cool beat, monsterlike vocals, and after the part with the singing, there's a real great part with all of this sex-level guitar solo-ing going on; it would definitely work as the soundtrack to a proper slam pit! After the swirlin' fury of that part of the song, it slows down to about half the speed, trudging into different segments following a certain beat. The first of these features a sad-sounding guitar melody of a repeated bass guitar riff. The second section has a just-about godly bass guitar riff using the rarely-utilized-in-music bass CHORDS, which sound just about as thick and heavy as fuck, with an icy rotating sort of lead guitar melody as the icing on the cake. This song is great!

6. Exit Tunnel
It's the EXIT TUNNEL, 'cuz we are now EXITing the album through this TUNNEL that's in URANUS! Slow beat and droning bass notes. You start hearing some buzz-saw type guitar chords fucking the lower parts. The guitar part that goes inbetween the lyrics with the part where the vocals are yelled sounds pretty cool. DRIFTING DRIFTING DRIFTING... andthat'stheendofthesong,kids.

Definitely an album worth checking out in my opinion! I won't post the download link -- I'll leave it up to you to look for it yourself, but do check it out and if you're in a position to, consider actually buying it and giving this band some money and giving yourself a cool new record to add to your collection! And these guys are probably gonna kill me for making another comparison to the Melvins, but if you like... THAT... band, then... check this out, 'cuz it's all SLOW N' SLUDGY, KIDZ. Real fucking heavy riffs and chords, beautiful solos, excellent drumming, and the vocals are usually good but I'm not extremely into the whole light singing voice... reminds me too much of nu-metal, which this band definitely is not. But it's their band, not mine, heh! SOOOOOOoOooo, that's all I have to say for now. Punks! Metalheads! Losers! Listen to some FANGS OF (a t.v. evangelist) today! It'll crush you!

Top 3 Favorites:
1. Anarchists Who Can't Do Manual Labour
2. We Shall Rule
3. A Pool of Water is God

Review #162: Reckless Aggression - Demo (2010)

RECKLESS AGGRESSION DEMO

Year: 2010
Genre: Hardcore Punk
Label: None
Tracks: 9
Length: 12 Minutes
Style: Angry/Violent
My Rating: 6/8

Reckless Aggression is a skinhead hardcore group from Victoria, Australia that formed last year and their sole purpose pretty much seems to be to play punk rock and piss people off (one time they pretended they were going to play a show with a flyer and everything only to never even show up). It seems they're currently in a state of not being able to perform/being broken up/I dunno and they're not selling copies of the tapes 'cause they're sold out and shit, but I'm going to review this tape anyways 'cause I thought it was pretty good.

1. Senseless Behavior
Cool riff. Really angry vocals. They sound just like the name of the only remaining member, whose name is... "Meatdog". Yes. But it's a pretty awesome-sounding song. No lyrics sheet, so I dunno what they're saying.

2. Nobody
This one's really fast. Once again, they have a tendency to write real cool chord progressions. The middle section is slower -- there's a real cool thing the drummer does during that part, but I dunno what the word for it is. Really energetic, awesome-sounding song.

3. Blood On the Streets
Slower tempo. From what I can vaguely make out from the lyrics it's probably some anthem to violence and shit like that. Awesome beat. The part at the end gets speedy, though.

4. Wonderful World
Once again, awesome guitar riff! "What a wonderful world it is..." -- that's the lyrics for the chorus part. The singing is pretty good here, also.

5. Waiting For the Night
Slow verse, fast chorus... you know how that goes. Still cool though, nonetheless.

6. Crusties Fear
Would they mean "Crusties" as in crust punks, "Crustie" the Clown, or those little hard boogers that get caught in the sides of your nose when you haven't picked it in a really long time? Well, they're all fearing right now... fearing something, at least.

7. Reckless Aggression
A theme song! YAEY! Fucking cool-as-somethingthat'sreallycool guitar riff. So is the chorus riff! I love it. A real fast song sure to stir up any pit or dingy room with a tape player or whatever you're listening to this being played in.

8. Nothing to Give
This one actually has a one-note lead guitar solo at 0:53 in the song... AMAZING!!!!! Not much I can really think of to say about this one, but it is a good song.

9. Dead End
The fastest song. Perhaps they were saving up all of their fast-energy up for this song at the very end. And now it IS the very end, man... or woman... I don't know. Geez, looks like time iz up.

So, I thought the songwriting here was pretty good. Perhaps the lyrics were pretty lame or something, but I don't really know 'cause I can't read them. Chock-full of cool chords and beats, though, that's usually pretty good. You'll probably like this if you like hardcore punk or oi or street punk or whatever. It's just really angry, tough-sounding fast music that sounds like it was recorded into a microphone made of broken glass because that would be an angry and tough-sounding thing to do. HAH. I'm just bullshitting you guys, really. But I liked it. So let's leave it at that. Don't know if these guys will be back anytime soon.

Top 3 Favorites:
1. Reckless Aggression
2. Wonderful World
3. Nothing to Give