American Sharks Announce Debut Album for Sept. 17 on The End Records
Upcoming Tours with Castle, The Sword, & Clutch Planned
Stereogum Premieres “XVI” ~ Listen here!
American Sharks have combined stoner metal fuzz, punk rock speed, and simplicity to create an amazing sound for their self-titled debut album out September 17th on The End Records.
The band will be embarking on two US tours this summer: the first will be with The Sword and Castle from July 25th to August 23rd, then comes their fall tour with The Sword and Clutch from October 27th to November 23rd.
View a complete list of tour dates here.
The album begins with guitarist Will Ellis’ simple two-note drone that’s been caked with fuzzy effects so the lead-off track “Iron Lungs” hits with maximum force. He’s soon joined by Mike Hardin’s bass and tortured, bellowing vocals and Nick Cornetti’s chugging drum beat on the song that bows out in one minute thirty four seconds, practically over before it started.
That’s sort of the ethos for this trio that originally formed in Houston and has managed to make the most of its stints opening for Austin metal heroes and “big brother” band The Sword. One big difference between the two, though, is that American Sharks shows ~ while similarly heavy on riffage and instrumental chaos ~ are Ramones-like in their consistent brevity and make their mark with unrelenting speed and power.
“It comes from a kind of pop sensibility that I think has been lost, in that people forget you don’t have to drag a song out to make it memorable,” Hardin said. “That’s why our longest set ever is 30 minutes and we’ve always wanted to play 15 to 20 minute shows. When we first started things got pretty crazy because people didn’t know how to react to it and they’d show up and start throwing beer everywhere.”
Similarly, the new American Sharks record features nine track and clocks in just a few ticks more than 20 minutes, making it a perfect soundtrack for a morning commute as long as the listener can resist the urge to put the pedal to the floor during “Overdrive.”
Recorded quickly in four days at Austin’s Fifth Street Studios by Bryan Richie, the album’s sound and pace was obvious almost from the start with first takes on Cornetti’s drum tracks serving as the bedrock for the band’s sound.
“When we started doing takes we’d do one and Bryan would say ‘That’s great. That’s a keeper,’ but we’d do a couple more and when I listened back those first takes were always the ones that had the energy,” Cornetti said. “The more you do something the more you think about it, so most of the songs on the record are first takes.”
Cornetti echoed Hardin in talking about the band’s determination to avoid overzealous guitar work or epic-length songwriting while channeling the best bits of metal legends like Black Sabbath and Motorhead.
“We like going out and not doing crazy weird things that go on for eight minutes,” he said. “There’s no unnecessary solos and our thinking is, ‘Let’s find a way to simplify it and make it faster.’”
A key to the record’s impact is the expert mixing job of Jason Buntz, who figured out how to capture the band’s power and mind-altering brute force while keeping the songs lean and sonically agile. While the band’s early “Weedwizard” single came close to capturing its power and economy, Buntz has helped them take a massive leap forward.
Take a listen to the “Demon With Glass Sword,” which rides a Sabbath-worthy riff as fast as it will go, balancing the needed heft with a blazing rhythm that doesn’t need any more than the two minutes and change it takes to leave a listener dazed and enthused. That combination is what prompts repeated listens, and what the band hopes will be the key to large success as its music is distributed to a worldwide audience thanks to a deal with The End Records. “Being on a label like that elevates us to a place where we can get worldwide distribution and we know someone is really going to be pushing to get the record into people’s hands,” Hardin said.
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American Sharks Tracklisting
01. Iron Lungs
02. Overdrive
03. Satan’s Overture Pt. 1
04. Indian Man
05. XVI
06. Freak Out
07. Demon With Glass Sword
08. Cocaine
09. 11:11