Released just a year after
Fallow Field
,
the Old Haunts
' sophomore album,
Fuel on Fire
, serves up a more focused and nuanced version of their stomping, spiky
garage punk
. This time around, their lumbering rhythms and prickly riffs owe less to their influences (although
Craig Extine
's nasal, raspy, vibrato-heavy voice still recalls
Jack White
or
Robert Plant
from time to time), and the slightly cleaner production makes
feel less like some lost, decades-old mutant
punk
album than
did. That's not to say that any of the weirdness or energy of the band's debut has been sacrificed, though -- if anything,
sound more distinctive on
than they did on their debut, and many of the album's best moments are loud and haunting at the same time.
"Civil Savage"
kicks off
with heavy slabs of
noise
mixed with intricate, spidery guitar parts borrowed from
surf
and
rockabilly
-- a trick the band repeats on the pissed-off title track -- and the album's closer,
"Scarlet Hall,"
is nigh-on apocalyptic. In between,
's tracks range from relatively straightforward rockers to songs that spin off in unexpected directions. A few songs (
"Death on the Sickbed,"
"Culture of Prey"
) are a little samey, but
"Wasted Day,"
which spreads out with a spooky piano coda, and
"Into a New Room,"
which pairs the album's poppiest, most lighthearted music with lyrics like "I've seen my skin severed but I have never been broken through the bone," show that the more ambitious, varied approach
took on
paid off.
revealed that they were an intriguing band to begin with, but -- despite its slight unevenness -- this album proves that
' odd brand of hellfire is truly compelling. ~ Heather Phares