Fang Island Fang Island (Sergeant House)
4/5
By: Stephen Maughan
From the moment the fireworks crackle on the opening 'Dreams of Dreams', you know you are set for a pretty wild party from current US indie hype, I mean hope, Fang Island, who have released their début three years on from wowing audiences with their Great Leap EP all the way back in 2007.
Fang Island are a band full of energy, ideas, and howling guitars that are at once deeply contagious, but remaining – and this is the tricky part – both artistic and offbeat. This is a group who, as shown by their website, align wild eyed children at playschool and ageing punkers with the Fang Island “let's have a good time” party spirit. Take a look at their site to see them performing to excited preschoolers at kindergarten, which has got to make a welcome change to the ratty clown performing 'The Wheels On The Bus' with little enthusiasm.
Fang Island are also a band who, in a world of global economic meltdown, countries going bankrupt, and millions of gallons of oil spilling into the sea, are about having a good time. Guitarist Chris George recently talked about their coming from “parties [where] we would get really psyched up, form a circle and high five our neighbours so that everyone would be high-fiving everyone”. At this point readers will likely be split into two groups. On one side will be the inevitable turtle neck beatniks declaring they can't imagine anything worse than a group of loud Americans “high fiving everyone” and sink back into reading the new Noam Chomsky (incidentally, it's crap), while the other half will be leaping around in joy, aching to get directions to said party.
Well, the party is right here on the CD. It’s a record where the music and atmosphere is more important than lyrics or even at times melody. It's ten infectious and soaring tracks that you can imagine pouring through Wembley Stadium with enough guitar solos to make even Brian May freak out. The “oh-woah-oh-oh-ooh” hymn of ‘Davy Crockett’ would be cheesy if not for the spellbinding and uplifting music which seems to roll down an endless yellow-brick road of hope and quirkiness.
Musically there’s so much going on that it's hard to pin Fang Island to a specific genre. It's classic rock, it's post rock, and it uses elements of classical music to evict emotion. It's a loud record – the guitar playing is relentless, and the drums bang out of the speakers. I'm all for a band whose sole purpose, if we are to take them seriously, is to make people happy. I love the fact they rocked out with a bunch of 4 year olds as well as wowed the cool elite of SXSW festival.
Ultimately the great thing about Fang Island is they are not a guilty pleasure in the way most happy sounding music is. You may have to hide away your Kylie Minogue records, but not this. Fang Island have succeeded in making the first party album for quite a while it's cool to like. I'm not normally one for going around giving everyone high fives, but in this case I'll make an exception.
Artists in this article: Fang Island
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