Happy New Year! For our first review of 2026 we take you back in time to a classic era of rock and roll…2018! Any era of rock and roll can be a classic one if you find the right record.
Disc 1891 is… Self-Titled
Artist: Bat Fangs
Year of Release: 2018
What’s up with the Cover? A kick ass logo, that’s what. This is the kind of logo you should painstakingly draw on the front of your notebook while sitting through Algebra.
This is a good time to note that back in high school I did not do well in Algebra.
How I Came To Know It: I am a fan of Ex Hex (see my review of their 2014 album “Rips” back at Disc 1332) so when I discovered that Ex Hexer Betsy Wright was in another band, I had to check it out. Unsurprisingly, I loved it.
How It Stacks Up: I have both Bat Fangs albums and they are both awesome, but this section is where we avoid equivocation. I rank this eponymous record second, but there’s no shame in it.
Ratings: 4 Stars
Do you like crunchy guitar riffs? Because if you do, you will get your fill of them on Bat Fangs’ debut record. Halfway through you may even think you’ll have had your fill, but you will be wrong. Instead, you will embrace the doubling down of reverberating goodness that is this not-so-hidden treasure of this band.
Bat Fangs is only two people (guitarist/vocalist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura King) but they have a White Stripes-like ability to make a joyous racket worth twice as many rockers. There is a weight to the way this duo plays that coats every song in a thick rime of sound.
Earlier this week I was listening to some Joan Jett and the playing style of Wright reminded me favourably of Jett’s. Wright’s playing is controlled aggression, the hip-thrust groove of timeless (yet somehow brand new) riff structures paired up with bit-lip vocals that are playful in the same way a middle linebacker is playful when he puts his helmet in your chest.
While Bat Fangs is definitely hard-edged, there is a pop sensibility underneath that had me thinking of sixties vocal groups. They are often singing in close unison, and there is a vibrant bounce in the songs that is a little bit “My Boyfriend’s Back” but with a sharper edge. Like if the boyfriend is only back to fearfully collect all his belongings from where they’ve been strewn across the lawn and then clear out before he gets hit with a bottle.
On their second album, Bat Fangs mixes in some atmospheric sounds and other variations on their sound, but here on their debut they eschew any range in favour of power. From the opening notes of the aptly named “Turn It Up” the record launches you forward. It is banger after banger.
Right near the end there is one slightly slower (but still heavy) tune (“Mercury”) that sways just a little to start with, but it only lasts maybe 90 seconds before it starts to inexorably bare its fangs with a spiraling, ever-heavier resolution.
While the sensibility here has punk elements (the record is in, on, and over in 25 minutes), Bat Fangs finds their inspiration more directly in the hard rock of the seventies and eighties. There isn’t anything frantic about the way they play. Instead, the band sits right down in the middle of the pocket and gets comfortable there. If there’s any lean at all, it is slightly back in the saddle so the note can churn just a little longer.
On a lesser record, this single-minded focus might get tiresome, but the songs are consistently excellent, and that mid-range production doubles down in a way that lets every song bleed to the edges in just the right way. Besides, at 25 minutes long there just isn’t time to let your mind wander. It’s over before you know it and you just want to hear it again.
Bat Fangs is two women who clearly love rock and roll and know how to make the good kind. This is music for fast Camaros (the first-generation variety) that growl just for the joy of it. No frills, because no frills are needed. It is music for playing loud, with hair down and horns up.
Best tracks: Turn it Up, Rock the Reaper, Bad Astrology, Wolfbite, Fangs Out
