Nashville Cow-Punk Outfit Raging Fire Release First New LP in 30 Years With ‘These Teeth Are Sharp’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

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It’s been over thirty years since the members of Nashville’s Raging Fire have released an album, but you would hardly know it from their new release These Teeth Are Sharp. The band’s heyday came at a time when bands like X and Gun Club were breathing fresh life into punk. Being from the home of country music, Raging Fire would do things their own way and add a bit of twang and plenty of swagger to their sound. Garnering a respectable following but never fully taking off, Raging Fire called it quits in 1989. Years passed by and in 2012 the band released a retrospective, Everything Is Roses 1985-1989 and played a reunion show in Nashville. Even though the reunion and release tragically coincided with the passing of founding member Michael Godsey, the band was encouraged and decided it was time to return to the studio to cut some fresh material and see if they still had that mojo.

Indeed, as the name suggests, this collection of nine songs proves that these teeth are still sharp with its rowdy mélange of pop, cow-punk, and straight up rock and roll. The album kicks off with the hard-hitting bite of “These Teeth Are Sharp” with vocalist Melora Zaner swooning before an eruption of shredding kicks up the tempo. The song feels like a sort of western gothic punk, which is actually what a lot of the album feels like. “A Narrow Sky” is a straightforward power rocker elevated by heavy drums and soaring guitar work to complement Zaner’s defiant vocals. “Walking the Dog” slows things down as Zaner sings with a sexy whisper, and the song has a mischievous, lurking feel, doing justice to Rufus Thomas’ R&B classic. “Free To Be” is one of the album’s catchiest songs with a chorus that soars amidst a backdrop of piano tinkering and infectious riffs. “Hush Angel Blue” is a standout track with its alt-country sound, and “Raindances” shines as a walloping punk rock tune that makes you want to jump up and down in a sweaty dive bar. The album closes with a bang with “Dreams From Under the Love Seat”, a lyrically strong track that makes literary references and questions the meaning of dreams, reminding us that Raging Fire may rock hard, but they also think hard too.

While Raging Fire are anything but sloppy, their sound is still that of a fine-tuned bar band. This is a compliment, as straightforward rock and roll bands best suited for a night of heavy drinking are increasingly rare these days. Lyrically, the songs on These Teeth Are Sharp are fairly standard and even cliché at times, but this band isn’t trying to make any kind of grandiose statement. At the end of the day, Raging Fire are experts at making energetic rock and roll, and while the album isn’t a major departure from anything they’ve done before, it is a welcome return from a band always deserving of respect.

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