red fang - whales and leeches

thanks to relapse and their perpetual re-press policy, i finally am abel to add this album to the collection. not as strong as their other records but still crucial. best stoner metal band out there? maybe... relapse records. 2013/2021.

red fang - only ghosts

last sunday i went to see red fang play live in hamburg. of course i knew that the band released their new record two days before, on 14th of october. when the release was announced, i considered to order the most limited colour version from relapse but the damn thing sold out super fast. therefore i wanted to wait for the european edition on hot pink vinyl. it isn't that limited but i thought the colour way looked pretty cool.

then i saw the announcement of red fang's european tour this autumn and was delighted to see that they would stop at hamburg as well. i saw them live at wacken open air this year, they played a great set and i was really looking forward to see them in a more intimate club show setting. furthermore i thought it might be cool to snag a limited tour colour edition of which i read in the relapse pressing info. what can i say, the show was great.

the band seemed to really enjoy playing the new songs and people were going crazy. especially when they played their encore and let loose the "prehistoric dog". good times. torche played as support act and just before they hit the stage i went to the merch table and grabbed three copies of "only ghosts". one for my uncle, another one for a good friend and the last one for myself. now that i listened to the record a few times, i can only say that the band's third full length is in no way inferior the the prior albums.

red fang take no prisoners with their catchy mix of stoner rock, sludge, doom metal and some progressive elements. i love the fact that they are so variable, not least because the two vocalists. bass player aaron beam and guitarist maurice bryan. beam brings in a queens of the stone age edge and bryan the rough high on fire spirit. winner combination. the artwork has a nice seventies feel to it and works lovely with the gold with black splatter vinyl. a shame there is no insert with lyrics. 1000 copies made exclusive to the band. relapse records. 2016.

red fang - s/t

red fang's upcoming album "only ghosts" ranks pretty high on this year's new releases list. i love their "murder the mountains" lp, at this year's wacken festival they had a killer set and i am really looking forward to the club show in hamburg coming october, where i will be hopefully able to snag a tour copy of the new record. therefore i needed more red fang vinyl on my shelf. there were two records still to get for me and so i checked the market situation.

i opted for the self titled debut record from 2008. it was released originally on wäntage records from the states. the label did a black pressing and a limited coloured edition on red vinyl out of 121 copies. as this is pretty limited, copies start at 130 buck at discogs. no way i would unload that much cash on a record and so i settled with a re-press from six years back on sargent house records. the music itself is great but i didn't expect differently.

after i saw the video to "prehistoric dog", i wasn't doubting the quality of this baby. this release is actually a compilation and no coherent full length. the first four songs have been released as "tour e.p. 2" in 2007 and the last five songs as "tour e.p. 1" in 2006. the song in between, "good to die", is the only one that was written and recorded on the occasion of this output. sargent house did a real basic presentation here. cover sleeve and vinyl, there you go. sargent house records. 2010.

red fang - murder the mountains

for the first time this year i will post about a recent addition to the collection. although this record was released already five years ago. i know the name red fang since i plunged head first into relapse records' stoner and progressive metal pool, riding big waves of mastodon, baroness and high on fire. these top notch bands are constantly on heavy rotation on my turntable with one album or another.

being compared to those bands, i always knew that interest in red fang might pay off by being awarded with more great stoner tunes. especially this record, 'murder the mountains', was to cross my path alarmingly frequent. i once held a fourth press copy on brown marble in my hands four years ago but put it back due to a lack of understanding. in the following time i checked a song or two of that album every once in a while, but it never really clicked.

when a good friend and me were on a vinyl shopping spree in hamburg, hopping from store to the other, we also stopped at saturn store where we found copies of red fang's first self-titled album and 'murder the mountains'. he was raving about the band but already blew his budget. and i tasted blood. when i was at the store a few weeks later doing some christmas shopping, the record still sat there and i couldn't resist anymore.

sometimes you simply know that you like a certain record without listening to it properly before. 'murder the mountains' is such a record to me. i really love the queens of the stone age vibe going on here. still the band has its very own sound. a cracker all the way through. check out 'throw up' and 'human herd', my favourites. the packaging is great with its die-cut cover, the nasty mountain underneath and the lovely white vinyl. tenth press out of 1340 copies. relapse records. 2011/2015.