Shapes Have Fangs debut gritty success

Shapes Have Fangs asked the Twitterverse "Are we dead?" in December 2010. Months later, they seem to have answered their own question with a resounding "Hell no!" by releasing Dinner in the Dark.

This local band's debut is a gritty, lo-fi escape from the hi-gloss popular fare oozing from your car radio. Dustin Coffey and Skyler McGlothlin, proprietors of South Congress recording studio Laguna Studio, together with Skyler's brother Evan McGlothin and Josh Willis, have produced an entertaining premiere effort.

The album opens with the dissonant, ragged title track daring you to decipher its distorted vocals by cranking the volume ever higher, an exercise as satisfying as it is futile. The mud-caked rock tunes strut, swagger, and creep by at a steady pace until the instrumental "Terlingua," an apt soundtrack for a Mexican standoff or a suicide girl photo shoot.

This project's musical departures (the jarring, experimental "The Spoils" and "Sulphur and Mercury") ask to be enjoyed away from the party, where the listener can digest them in private. Dinner In The Dark is, ultimately, a dirt crossroads by a dive bar; after last call flushes us out into the street, we're left wanting more, wondering what's next.