“Iretsu’s new album was written in four improvised sessions, but Fang isn’t a quartet of burly, extended compositions. Rather, it’s a string of 14 brief, interconnected songs, which bear pop hooks over an experimental foundation. Electric piano and guitar drive the majority of the tracks, and Iretsu harness full-throttle rock on ‘Humbuzzer,’ with slice-and-dice guitar riffs and a relentless drumbeat. Elsewhere, ‘Sexy, No?’ flirts with a funk strut, ‘Hey You’ makes use of found dialogue by a woman who sounds like Jane Fonda, and the title of ‘Nuclear Whistles’ is more or less what it sounds like—high-pitched drones whooshing before a guitar riff drives it into the following track, ‘Waves.’ Iretsu has evolved capably over the past eight years, embracing a number of guises. With Fang, they’ve made some of their most approachable material yet, balancing it perfectly with some of the weirder shades in their palette.”
Hidden Shoal MixTape
