Album review: Tooth Lures A Fang – “Fake Control”

Lo-Fi City Recordings – 29 April 2023

“When the sky falls all around me, I only smile”

Across the world, it is easy to see that nuance is dying… luckily, nobody told Ohio’s Tooth Lures A Fang yet. Over Fake Control‘s 13 tracks the Buckeyes alternate, blend and manipulate the characteristics of power-pop and indie rock.

I’ll always be a sucker for garage-y power-pop with soaring harmonies, a little Ric Ocasek-vibe goes a long way for me.  The other key to my musical heart is that high-registered alto vocals of the early 00s pop-punk scene. Tooth Lures A Fang demonstrates both with such aplomb that I’ve been in a state of swoon over the new record since first contact.  

An argument can be made that there is no risk in the well-tread paths of power-pop, but there is nothing more dangerous in music than to take a sound that has been done to death and resurrect it, breathing new life into it. TLAF have perfected that resuscitation on their third record.

Fake Control shimmies through your speakers, bringing newness to the timeless art of power-pop, channeling The Kinks, Beach Boys and The Cars without any feelings of redundancies or insincerity.  The Ohio outfit breezes its beautiful melodies and college radio-ready chords provide a base that helps hold Tooth Lures a Fang head and shoulders above most of today’s garage-rockers.  

In a world like this where my 8th grade daughter is fawning over the sights and sounds of the 90s and early-aughts, TLAF is an unironic aural journey to that world, all while maintaining a fresh newness and universality. This collection of songs is one to look for when you are in a good mood just as much as when you are in a foul mood.. The lyrics will likely allow listeners to relate in a variety of ways but never feel excluded from the conversation.

By the time the band gets through the 44-minute long Fake Control, the listener might feel the exhaustion in their legs, and its hard to say whether those heavy-legs came from a brisk jaunt through a suburban Midwestern hamlet with Tooth Lures A Fang’s narrative as the tour guide or toe-tapping the impossible to ignore melodies that course throughout the album.  The entirety of the record is solid as TLAF makes clear what they bring to the table: a smorgasbord of hooks, pedals, fuzz and clever turns of phase.  Vocalist and guitarist Zach Starkie (no relation to Ringo’s son/current touring drummer of The Who) paints a portrait of growing up in suburban Cincinatti over distorted the guitar fuzz of Katy Evers, while the rhythm section of Nic Pater’s beefy and throbbing bass and Johnny Kathman’s drums narrating a concurrent tale, the supporting character without which progression is nullified.

Like any well-written album, the subject matter expertly vague, hitting on a personal level, relatable to many experiences. On opener, “Pennies” Starkie displays his vocal range, crooning about picking up change and letting it add up (or maybe it’s about collecting all the nickels worth of free advice). Personal favorite, “Better Friends” find beauty in the callouses we earn through a life well-life.

I think the easy word to use to describe this record is “FUN”… but fun is really an absolute understatement… I just can’t think of a stronger word for the merry-making upon which this four-piece is putting to wax.  Fake Control is the after-hours soundtrack to a suburban summer evening, the kind of music you groove to when you don’t know where your life is headed but the future simply doesn’t matter.  The melodies and harmonies are calm and beautiful enough to keep the neighbors from calling the cops but powerful enough to keep the energy high.