Fangs And Twang “You Monster”

An album of fiddle-driven, creepy escapades which also makes some serious points.

Formed in 2014 Fangs And Twang comprise Billy LaLonde (drums, vocals), Andy Benes (guitar, vocals) and Joe Bertoletti (bass, vocals) all of whom are veterans of the Michigan music scene. They are joined by a rotating cast of collaborators that include Loren Kranz as well as the fiddle players Mark Wallace and Colin Murphy. The majority of this record was recorded over a weekend session at Willis Sound, a studio just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan built in a 130 year-old former church. The band were recorded live by Joe Sleep to try to capture the energy of the group’s live shows, something which he certainly seems to have succeeded in.

The question here is, have Fangs And Twang invented a new form of americana? And if so what’s it called? “Spooky country”, “creepy country” or something else? Fangs and Twang sing twangy songs of vampires, mummies, the Loch Ness monster and various other mythical creatures. Formed in 2014, the band’s concept is substituting monsters into classic country music tropes. This is Fangs And Twang’s fourth album exploring this rather niche genre of music. Songs include ‘Mermaids In The Bay’ which is a story of Great Lakes mermaids taking on pirates, ‘LunaTick’ a tale of a bout of Lyme disease retold as a tragic love story and ‘Incredible‘ which relates what it’s like to be the Incredible Hulk.

There are many other light-hearted moments such as ‘Seger Snowman‘, which is about a Bob Seger loving abominable snowman dreaming of living in warmer climes to get his ‘head together‘. It’s not all scary or light-hearted japes. Although the song ‘You Monster‘ initially declares a belief in Big Foot and various other monsters, the song is really a commentary on misinformation, mistrust of the mainstream media and conspiracy theories. This is the real monster which haunts society; as Fangs and Twang sing, ‘We used to sing about monsters, Now we sing about you, We used to sing about nightmares, Then the nightmares came true‘.

This may not be everybody’s cup of tea but if you’re a fan of Hammer Horror films and catchy, fiddle-driven country-style songs, then they’ll be something for you to love here.