Welcome back fellow tourists to another exciting edition of Souvenir of the Week! This week’s souvenir is the album Murder the Mountains by the band Red Fang who come from the somewhat often overlooked genre of heavy metal. Well, there and Portland, Orgeon.
Red Fang formed back in 2005 and have released 3 albums and toured most of the world since then. They’ve played with bands such as Metallica, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Mastodon. They also had their song Hank Is Dead featured on a heavy metal compilation put together by Adult Swim. So when Murder the Mountains came out in 2011 as their second album they had plenty of experience melting people’s faces off with the power of metal.
At first Murder the Mountains may seem like a short album, with only a total of 10 songs, but the total run time is almost 42 minutes which is more then enough time for you to head-bang all your worries away. Tracks like Hank is Dead, Dirt Wizard, and Painted Parade have an amazing heavy hitting and crazy fast sound that hits you right in your gut. Pretty much every song on this album will have you at least bobbing your head back and forth, but if those previously mentioned songs don’t have you risking whiplash then I don’t know what is wrong with you.
Other songs such as Throw Up, Wires, Into the Eye, and Malverde have such driving, massive, mean, and intimidating sounds. The heavily distorted guitars, drums that sound like their being punched, and the rough vocals all create this great heavy metal/thrash-ish sound. These songs make you feel like walking down the street like some sort of blessed disciple of metal and mean mugging anyone who dares cross your path.
If self induced whiplash and menacing the public aren’t really your thing then don’t fret, I haven’t even gotten to how great this album is to play air-instruments to. Personally my favorite song to practice being a metal star is Wires, the simple but powerful and fun guitar riffs in it are great to play with my trusty air-guitar. Also, as you’ll listen to the album I’m sure you’ll notice how great the drums are in it. Just be careful when air-drumming or tapping on your steering wheel, especially when it comes to the song Painted Parade, that intro alone might cause you to get a bruise or two.
My favorite tracks are: Wires, Painted Parade, Dirt Wizard, and Malverde. I think this album is great and everyone who has any interest in metal or even just hard rock should listen to this. Plus I highly recommend listening to this album to anyone who wants to: get pumped up and/or feel like a bad ass, relieve some stress by head banging, or fine tune their air-guitar or drum skills while commuting. Well thanks for reading and see all of you beaütiful & brütal people next week.
Photo credit: http://fanart.tv/artist/fb2cc158-0ad2-4dc5-a6b6-b2a1a8e2fe65/red-fang/