Share BELLA MORTE -The Fags (Death Dance Records/MGM)
Here's a bunch of mean and lewd, down and dirty blues from a Perth four-piece. Sharp eyes will spot Tony Pola (Beasts of Bourbon, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists) on the credits as well as Doug May (aka KT Rumble - aka Abby May's guitarist.) The album title means "beautiful death" - and you'll agree if your idea of a happy demise is being pummelled by gut bucket guitar.These 11 songs don't waste time on niceties. They have a nice sense of dischordant urgency. Rumble's guitar runs over and through them like a tracer bullet stream. There's lots of room in the songs for him to fill. Pola's weighty feels anchor and drive this music like a re-conditioned 540 Hemi. As for the the haughty vocal that Louis Miles brings to the party, well it perfectly suits the "fuck-you" sentiment therein.
Any band can have a mildly offensive name - this one had them booted off MySpace for a time - but The Fags also have good (and mildly offensive) songs. They range from the anthem-like "Freedom Fighters Of Love" to the kidney-punch punk of "Break a Little Back." Lyrically speaking, sex and drugs rule this roost.
"Dog Town" fairly sums up what's happening early on with a pounding back-beat and scuttling guitar lines. "Freedom Fighters" is the obvious single, with a steel-plated riff pervading and Miles' vocal prsyading and planted right up front. "Benny" is the lighter moment, a break from the downstrokes.
It all sounds great, too. Dr Alien Smith did the production business at Bergerk Studios in Perth and manages to hustle up a lively, in-your-face sound.
There's a bottom line to most things and as much as it might be lazy to quote previous history of band members to give context, I couldn't see anyone who's into the Surrealists or most incarnations of the Beasts not taking to this like a moth to a flame. - The Barman
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