Tuesday, July 9, 2013

... FEVER DOG "Lady Snowblood" (EP Review)

FEVER DOG is a burning power trio comprised of Danny Graham (guit/voc), Nathan Wood (bass) and Joshua Adams(drums), the guys are into desert Rock/Psychedelic Rock and come from Palm Desert California,USA... 

Through a very short mail they asked me to review their single "Lady Snowblood" which I've been attentively listening over the last days... I was about to start writing about it when I realized they had much more stuff in stock, something they didn't mentioned in this mail one month ago... And indeed, they in fact formed in 2007 and released two albums under the name of Snot rocket, then changed their name for FEVER DOG and released another album last fall called "Volume One"!

Then a few days ago, I discovered that a new EP called "The Great Tree Single" came out (July 04) in between on their bandcamp page, all this would be nothing special if this "Snowblood" EP - we're still gonna talk about, wasn't by far the best of all !!!! So I'll concentrate my writing as initially planed, it's not that "volume one" doesn't deserve a mention but it's really more classical big guitar Rock with mainly short and loud songs than  both tracks we've got here "Lady Snowblood/Child of the Netherworlds" and "Hats Off to Andrew Bowen" who clock respectively at 10 and 15  minutes, and are a lot more tight and groovy.

The sound is a lot more hazier and expansive at the same time, where on the album it's more rough and loud. With an awesome aplomb, F.D.  is throwing the Desert Rock and Psychedelic Heavy Rock genres into a stunning melting pot of heaviness and catchiness. The band isn't about infectious choruses, concise structures and slickness but definitely right on alternating high energy riffs with heavy fuzz, occasionally jazzy accents and above all insanely howling solos. The long length of the songs is leaving place for plenty of solos and repeated rythms, the kind of stuff you can either take for a drive out of town or just sitting and chilling out at home, in any cases fans of long extended jams will like it for sure !  

I absolutely dig the beginning of "Lady Snowblood", the atmosphere puts me back into Punk Rock Guilt from BB "the cool man", vocals especially which make me think I would want more cause they're pretty rare all along the album; then the pace gets heavier and quickly powerhouse-like (reminds The Atomic Bitchwax) with incendiary fuzz and pumping heavy bass... the nautical/spacey break in the middle of the song is hypnotical, just as the kind of experimental climax  at about the same stage of 2nd song, those moments value the versatility of the compositions during approximately a nice long minute before the guys progressively come back in heavier territories with obvious skills that would give average musicians a six-months trauma !!!

This EP is a mark of the gods of psyched-out heavy Rock and I think this is definitely the sound and approach those young talented guys must keep as guideline - which seems confirmed in the intentions on the new "The great Tree" EP in the intentions, even if the (only new) song is shorter (7 minutes) with a slightly less dynamic sound; it looks like this one needs some time to grow on me and well, I already took a month to write on this killer dudes, so I think that I'll come back to you readers in a few weeks through a complete interview with F.D. , ok ?! Meanwhile check out "Lady Snowblood" as a name your price affair, highly recommended stuff - 


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