THE SOUND OF ANIMALS FIGHTING ā€“ Tiger & The Duke (Equal Vision)
Original release date: June 26th, 2007
Tiger & The Duke is jaw-dropping. Its foundation is post-hardcore, with liberal doses of prog, funk, metal, blues, screamo, and ambient sounds. Throw in abrupt tempo changes, soaring dual vocals, unpredictable structures, and free improvisation and itā€™s difficult to describe any one track in less than a page, let alone the whole release, which consists of four vital songs (or Acts), plus four meandering electronic instrumentals.
The combination of styles is at first bewildering, but it begins to make a sort of sense when investigation reveals that the anonymous characters who make up the band (identified by pseudonyms such as The Lynx and The Nightingale) include members of progressive ska-reggae-rock outfit RX Bandits, post-hardcore group Finch and experimental rock band Circa Survive. Elements from all these acts can be heard on Tiger & The Duke (filtered through a Mars Volta sensibility and fused together by electronica), but they still make unlikely collaborators in the first place. Having identified the pieces of the puzzle, the whole picture remains intimidating.
This reissue remasters the out-of-print EP (first released in 2005) and adds seven remixes and a live recording of songs originally found on the collectiveā€™s debut album, Lover, The Lord Has Left Us. The live version of Horses In The Sky is the most powerful of the additional tracks, many of which (such as the Unā€™aria Elettronica (Technology) remix by Chris Tsagkis) are as drowsy as the original EPā€™s interludes, although My Horse Must Lose (Portugal The Man) and The Heretic (Evol Intent) are recast as compelling off-kilter pop in the vein of Hefner, while you can probably guess what This Heat In Dub sounds like from the title.
At their best, The Sound Of Animals Fighting are intense and challenging. The interludes and many of the remixes could be seen as padding rather than enriching the experience, but while I lean towards the former, Iā€™ll still give them kudos for creativity. You wonā€™t hear anything quite like this anywhere else.
Owen Heitmann
