Artist: Red Fang
Album: Murder The Mountains
Genre: Hard Rock/Metal
Label: Relapse

Often I’ve tried to imagine what it would sound like if some daring soul blasted Kyuss and Mastodon at the same time through the vast and mighty halls of Valhalla during a thunderstorm, then tried to record the resulting echo. Murder the Mountains by Red Fang is, in my opinion, the closest, non-hypothetical comparison to what that entire auditory ordeal would end up like. With robust riffs the size of your head and growling vocalists raunchy enough to tear one from their very own happy place, this album delivers a life size temporal lobe beat down that any fan of the genre can appreciate.

Now, metaphors and Nordic mythology references aside, I gotta say… This album is not that much different any other. There are tons of spine-spiking, doom/stoner metal projects available for anyone into that gloomy guitar laden genre, and this one is definitely part of that family, but it’s more like a 2nd cousin that you always confuse with your other 2nd cousins. While cool and steadfast in the ways of hard rock, Red Fang doesn’t really do much to differentiate themselves from everybody else who’s doing a good job of pumping out the same stuff they are.



The production on MtM is just what you want when you’re looking for heavy tunes. Fuzzed up & raspy vocals, riff riding guitars with breakdowns pushed up to the forefront, and steady drums that can take you into a half-time trance by mauling ride cymbals through breakdowns. For me, the album doesn’t get better than track #2 (MtM’s first single) “Wires”. It just keeps kicking and kicking. Walking a line between rock and metal, it’s heavy, yet catchy. They got it to sound substantial even through the lone guitar dis-chord riffage and cap the song off strong with some good natured stoner metal repetition.



It is hard to rate these types of projects without knowing the artist’s real intent behind the album. If this was Red Fang’s attempt at writing music never before heard or imagined within the doom metal community that really took on the challenge of adding something intellectually and lyrically valuable that will be remembered for years as an innovative collaboration which spawned new outlooks on a heavily worn down genre… this isn’t an album that meets any of those goals. 



IF however, this endeavor was intended to set ominous guitars and malevolent sounding vocals grinding against a listener’s brain while pounding brawny riffs and intensely dark breakdowns down your throat with the expectant outcome being an appetizing album for music lovers with mindsets quite comparable to the men of Red Fang’s, then I’d call this little hellion they’re releasing on April 12th a success.

Score: 7/10
Review written by: Eric Dexter

• Author
• Recent Posts

James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

Latest posts by James Shotwell (see all)

• 2015’s Most Underrated Films - December 29, 2015
• Passing The Torch: The End Of An Era For UTG - December 1, 2015
• UTG PREMIERE: Before The Streetlights – “Private Browser” - November 26, 2015