Fang Island

Just got back from an awesome show. Well, by awesome I mean I paid $25 to see the opening band play a 30 minute set and then left out of sheer boredom during the 2nd* of 3 bands' sets. Tonight was Dr. Girlfriend's birthday, so we hit the town in style to go see one of her, and Andrew W.K.'s, favorite new bands, Fang Island. With roots in Providence, Rhode Island, they've been kicking around since 2006. Their first full length and self titled album was released in February 2010 on the heels of 2 EPs in the years prior (one of which I now own and is signed with a happy birthday message to the girlfriend...the guys were all super cool, and I think I was next to their bassist's grandparents during the show).

In trying to describe this band's sound, I keep coming back to comparisons to Akron/Family (could not for the life of me find a studio version of that song, but you should buy the album, it's great) and Animal collective with oddly metal undertones. So they're kind of like indie rock metal. Sounds awful, but somehow it works. Great guitar virtuosity and riffs that would make a lot of "face melting" guitarists jealous drive their songs and are backed by 4 of the 5 members periodically singing chorus style vocals. Most of the songs launch into instrumental passages that breezily fly through a number of styles, tempos, and time signatures with a natural ease. These guy have some talent, that's for damn sure.

Here's "Daisy" from their self titled album. For some reason they added an extra minute of nothing happening to the video mix, so just go ahead and skip to about 1:15 in. I won't judge you for it.




Their 2nd video from the same album is "Life Coach." This is the song on the album that most reminds me of Animal Collective, but not in a ripoff kind of way. It's a little "lighter" as well, but if you listen closely, there's some pretty heavy palm muted guitar in there.






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*This was a band from Boston named Caspian. Super boring derivative garbage with no stage presence. I know they keep coming up a lot over here, but they really thought they were Sigur Ros or God Speed You! Black Emperor. Too bad they sucked. I wanted to like them, but left 3 (obnoxiously long and boring) songs in. The 3rd band was the Red Sparrows, who I checked out a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion that it would end up as the same bullshit as Caspian.


Hey you made it this far. Here's another Animal Collective video, because they're awesome. Reminds me a bit of when the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson started doing A LOT of acid during the making of "Pet Sounds."