Fangtooth are a new, and young True Doom band from Italy which means they are in good company with Doomraiser for one as well as some heroes like Paul Chain in the past. It is, though, a genre where mature age is often valued too as well as being for some reason a tricky beast to create an individual sound from the off. So what are Fangtooth offering?
Things start reasonably enough with 'The Eye Of God' dredging up a riff with the low end blues grunt of Earthride. It's when the vocals come in that things start to go awry. No there is absolutely nothing wrong with the vocals; Sfack has a nice range and a fine wail on him that at times makes you think of King Diamond at half speed or that gloriously unhinged performance on the one and only Sevenchurch album. No, the moment the vocals come in is when I realise that the mix and the production on this album is horrible.
Firstly the vocals have been given a distant cavernous feel which could work in small doses and certainly lends atmosphere to songs like 'Father' but here mostly it just helps bury them down in the mix. But secondly, and the real problem, is the drums. Or more precisely the cymbals. When your crash and ride sounds drown out both riff and voice you know either the drummer snuck back in one night or the mix is shocking. And its such a shame as the drumming from Grendel is really spot on and articulate and the band can add more atmosphere to a song with a well placed bass line than most can with three keyboards and a computer programmer. Just that sound keeps ringing in my ears.
If you can filter out this sheet metal noise what you will find is potentially very promising. There is a raw feeling of naivety here, yes, but for example for every shaky second in the dark, brooding 'Martyr' there are long minutes of superb doom flavoured music with some excellent acoustic playing of a deep Mediterranean feel. Fangtooth have a crafted a tortured and almost blackened feel to the music which gives them that vital spark of identity: Listen to the Mercyful Fate cries in the background over monolithic, slow chugged riffs on 'Cry Of The Nephilim' or the plaintive calls on 'Rise Again' flowing over a more traditional European style of doom riff. This is the sound of dungeons and insanity. The acoustic, classical guitar works superbly with all this, too, particularly when used with rather than instead of the riff.
They can create a creepy atmosphere, too, a thick darkness with either echoing spoken words or those lovely fluid bass lines. 'In Depths We Lie' which opens with a great bass intro ends on some fine languid guitar that leaves you drifting away on some dark sea is a fine demonstration of this.
Without wishing to end on a negative sounding note though, in the end the aforementioned mix can't help but make this sound like quality demo that gets you signed rather than a finished album: it is too raw, too flatly recorded and unevenly mixed but don't doubt that it is still packed with talent and ideas. Don't take my word for it though: If you're a Doom fan give it a fair spin and, more importantly, remember the name because with a better studio experience they could really produce the goods in a very distinctive way.
http://www.myspace.com/fangtoothdoom
