The second album from guitarist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura King revels in a good time, backing up their bite with instrumental brawn.
There is something sublime about a monster truck flying through the air. Behemoth vehicles outfitted with intimidating paint jobs and names to match—Bigfoot, Grave Digger, Monster Mutt—launching themselves from tall dirt plateaus, a nose thumbed at God and gravity and any other challengers as they become airborne. Queen of My World, the second album from the East Coast duo Bat Fangs, arrives with the same power and pomp, bearing a flamboyant edge all their own. Guitarist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura King form a sleek, rip-roaring unit that revels in a good time, backing up their bite with instrumental brawn.
Bat Fangs draw gleefully from the biggest excesses of rock‘n’roll, delivering the postures of hair metal and late-’80s rock without any of the lechery, heroin, or sticky dessert metaphors. Where blowhard ego ruled the arena-glam heyday, the pair instead manage an air of cool that seems effortless. As the bassist for Ex Hex, Wright oversaw their strongest numbers like “Radio On” and “How You Got That Girl”; in Bat Fangs, her capacity as a hook-minded lead guitarist is front-and-center. King and her rhythmic sensibilities have long tended toward the hard, fast, and loud (with the snarling trio Flesh Wounds, the double-drum outfit Speed Stick, and in Mac McCaughan’s backing band), and they add muscle to the songs in tandem with Wright’s ferocious riffs.
The pair’s songs tend toward supernatural associations—mentions of spells cast, creatures in the shadows, cosmic forces—which serve more as a thematic springboard than a goofy gimmick. In contrast to the direct shots of the band’s self-titled debut (“Wolf Bite,” “Rock the Reaper”), the more prismatic Queen of My World feels beamed in from an alternate universe where Lisa Frank made her fortune designing airbrushed-wizard panel vans. Wright matches her lines about far-out curiosities with shredded guitar, her shout-along yeahs, whoas, and ohs soaring around solos that feel directly aimed at serotonin centers.
For all the big thrills, Bat Fangs keep Queen running lean under 35 minutes, and from the opening strut of “Action,” not one of their songs ever has the opportunity to sour. “Psychic Eye” is its own rollercoaster at the middle of the record, cooling with a slithering melody before Wright rips a note that crackles like lightning over King’s thunderclouds. Building from a tumble of light, knotty guitar, the instrumental closer “Into the Weave” shifts from a springy, borderline psychedelic number into a fuzzy, scorching climax before wafting away.
Though subtlety is not the ruling order of Bat Fangs, their wholehearted approach to everything gives Queen a sanguine undercurrent. “I act like I don’t care but/I don’t wanna dance alone,” Wright admits on the punchy “Talk Tough.” The record’s title track is an admiring recollection of youthful friendship with a strong spiritual affinity to Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl.” Bat Fangs’ vibrancy would make for a good time even if Wright were singing a technical manual, but the top-down, unabashed enthusiasm of their material makes it shine. The heavy expectations of Serious Rock Music and mortal existence turn featherweight in their hands, a neon-tinged shift in perspective that leaves a glowing halo behind.
Bat Fangs are light on their feet while sticking the landing on songs that could fill football stadiums. A single, angelic “aah” ends the album, another good-natured wink that lasts just long enough to ring with sincerity. Bat Fangs offer a mix of high spirits, gut-rattling guitar jams, and escapism, a combination best captured in one of the holiest two-word phrases in the English language: hell yeah.
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