NORMAN RECORDS
“Always a treat to get some new records in from HoZac. We’ve got four this week and too much to review but Phil’s letting me write about this one anyway as a kind of token gesture. I already enjoyed these guys’s LP but this single seems to distil their hazy, churning summer garage pop psychedelia into something even better!The first side comes across like Comets on Fire after taking a whole heap of chill pills, with great trails of psychedelic lead guitar and lazy-bump grooves, and the second side has two more songs in the same hot, fuzzy style. Maybe touches of The Heads in their blown out tones but the laid back kind of Carlton Meltony soft stoner vibes take the edge off and these guys have their own way of delivering this warm fuzzy psychedelia which is totally smooth and likeable. Indulgently enjoyable stuff. ”

IMPOSE
“Far-Out Fangtooth, based out of Philadelphia, create battering and incessant dirges. Their music rings out for the dead and ramshackle bones that fill cemeteries late at night. After an LP on Siltbreeze last year, Far Out-Fangtooth cement their guttural style with a new EP on Hozac. Title track “The Thorns” utilizes a bracing and keen understanding of tension, which feels more and more demented as each faded cry dissolves into screeching feedback. “Occasion of Sin” sounds like a possessed Spacemen 3, as death drags a bag of stolen souls along rusted, abandoned train tracks. If “Occasion of Sin” is a portrait of the grim reaper, then “Patience” is the listener’s own encounter with him, nearing the dreadful end. From there, Far-Out Fangtooth have lured their listeners into the dark, leaving nothing but the thirst of blood to survive. You can listen to The Thorns below, and get the EP”

THE DELI MAGAZINE - PHILADELPHIA
”Sometimes in order to beat the summer heat, it is best to just embrace the haze (well, all this predicted rain might help too). Far-Out Fangtooth offers just the right amount of hazy, psychedelic sounds to get lost in. Ambient with gothic tendencies, the four-piece has really evolved to become a must-see in the local music community. Their scuzzy guitar riffs recall the early days of punk, but the addition of echoing, distant vocals creates a cross-genre sound unique to today’s airwaves.”

“There will always be a subculture of society disgruntled by the world around them. Far-Out Fangtooth’ Pure & Disinterested has provided a new soundtrack echoing the disenchantment of a generation who was promised more, but unfortunately was given less (or at least that’s what they have perceived).”

REVOLT OF THE APES
“We can say that “Occasion of Sin” – a song from the Far-Out Fangtooth EP entitled, “The Thorns” (released by the consistently rad HoZac Records) – is today our favorite song of all time.

We can say that tomorrow the answer might be the EP’s title track, and the next day, the final song, “Patience.”

This isn’t hyperbole – ape shall not blow smoke up, around or near the posterior. This is an expression of the feeling we have when we are in the midst of listening to music that truly captures our mind, the feeling we have when we are in the midst of the eternal now, when there is only the sound and there is only our sloppy, closed-eye, air-guitar gyrations. This is our practice – the appreciation of the far-out.

And this is our appreciation of Far-Out Fangtooth. Deploying the brotherly love that defines their home city of Philadelphia, “The Thorns” nearly detonates with the dark, deep pulse of a kind of creepy, cosmic cramps that just feels right – a now sound, huge and harrowing, wrapped around a core of primitive yearning, a threatening thorn in the side of disposable culture.

We can say all of this due to the fact that we literally have not stopped listened to “The Thorns” since it was first brought to our attention, and our impression of the band’s impact and intensity shows no sign of growing long in the tooth.” 

VICE
“I guess there has been a lot of pinched nostrils and foul mutterings from the internet dooferati and other burrito-choking types over the debut LP from Philadelphia’s Far-Out Fangtooth. I’ve spun the thing more than a few times in the past few weeks, and I really don’t see what the issue is here. Granted, they look like Vince Noir’s backing band if The Black Tubes backed out of the gig, but the whole capes and wizard caps thing aside, this is a solid listen that doesn’t really bring to mind the gloom, doom, or spent candles of the gothdom tag that has been lazily pinned upon them. It reminds me more of the pre-crappy moments of Band of Susans or the more obvious connection of SST era Sonic Youth—both decent things to be compared to, me thinks. Small boys from Australia are great and all, but jeesh, would it kill you to buy American once in awhile? You’ll be glad you did.”
http://www.vice.com/read/from-our-lips-and-hips-to-the-horned-one-s-ears

YELLOW GREEN RED
“Never a label to neglect its hometown, Siltbreeze brings us Far-Out Fangtooth’s debut long-player. I live here too, but have yet to see the band live; something about their name has always been a bit of a turn-off, and I think I saw a live photo of them where the one dude was wearing a wizard robe, just enough to keep me at bay. I came at Pure & Disinterested with an open mind, though, and after a few run-throughs, I have determined that my early avoidance was vindicated. Far-Out Fangtooth kinda sound like a band influenced by some of Siltbreeze’s exceptional albums, but not quite worthy of joining the roster themselves… a lot of Pure & Disinterested reminds me of a mediocre mix of Naked On The Vague’s current incarnation and Sonic Youth, and then there’s a track like “Woe” that sounds like Diet Circle Pit. Far-Out Fangtooth probably have a Hozac single out, but if not, they should, as I’ve heard their sort of dreary, fuzzy punk on various Hozac singles over the past couple years (the names of which have mostly escaped my memory). Maybe I’ll see Far-Out Fangtooth randomly and fall in love, but this LP offers me no reason to feel anything but uninterested.”

“Three new ones from Philadelphia’s Far-Out Fangtooth, a band that I’ve tried to really dig in the past but have yet to truly succeed. Not a whole lot about this three-song EP changes my opinion, for better or worse. They’re still clanging out these slow, noisy garage songs that recall inhospitable landscapes… I’m reminded of swamps filled with hidden predators and barren deserts under a painful sun as these three songs start swirlin’. Not bad by any means, but the dreary, weather-worn blackness of their music usually leads me to boredom. Maybe that’s the point? Far-Out Fangtooth sound like they’re in pain, like they just found out their lover drowned or something, and they want to impose a little taste of sorrow on us, too. Not bad by any means, and practically a Grammy award-winner by HoZac standards.”

STYROFOAM DRONE
Pure & Disinterested makes Top 25 Albums of 2011 on Styrofoam Drone
“Opening with a brief and creepy soundscape that sounds like a tour through a haunted house, this quickly sets the tone for the rest of their record – a record that has been patiently waiting to see the light of day and thankfully that time is now. Far-Out Fangtooth are not quite a household name across Philadelphia yet, but as this record begins to seep into heads and slowly take over, that is something that is bound to happen sooner than later. What you will find here is dark and possessed goth-punk with an occasional psych-pop flare, riddled with melodic guitars and snarling vocals, all combining into one blistering and impressive debut LP.” 

“This is the first we’re hearing from Far-Out Fangtooth since their debut LP Pure & Disinterested on Siltbreeze Records. Considering where they left off with that record, it’s not much of a surprise how they ended up here.The Thorns shows off their puzzling sound that manages to sound lazy and somehow invigorating all at the same time, which you can hear in opener “The Thorns.” The track is driven by a stomping tom-tom rhythm that slowly drags underneath, filled out with filthy and shredded sonic guitar textures that will wrap you up tight and swallow you in one big bite. This sweeping metallic onslaught is enough to prove the intensely invigorating nature of these songs, which is exactly why you should experience the heated madness right below.

On the B-side you will find two more tracks, both of which are oozing with a contagious form of doom-punk anger that is as moody as it is scuzzy. The smokey haze is so thick in a song like “Patience” that you could almost cut through it with a knife, where the glowing guitar solos manage to shine through the thick fog with their harsh and tinny complexion.”

THE KEY - WXPN
“Philly psych-rockers Far-Out Fangtooth opened the show, their dark and relentless tunes transforming the venue into a vortex of goth-y doom. Dual vocalists/guitarists Nick Kulp and Joe Kusy wove bleak, angst-y soundscapes — the former channeling Robert Smith a bit with his spiky hair and brooding demeanor — while drummer Vince Alvaré pounded his floor tom and Tania Mesterhazy held things down on bass. The band’s 40-minute set passed like a fantastical trip into psych rock’s dark underbelly, shifting between insular and searching, merciless and aggressive, but remaining uncompromisingly spellbinding.”

”They dress in all black. The wear sunglasses at night. And they make a point of telling you how disinterested they are. Yup, the members of local garage-goth quartet Far-Out Fangtooth have that whole detached thing pretty much down pat. Fitting, then, that the two lo-fi tracks on the band’s debut 7-inch (released earlier this year on Ian Records) are dripping with reverb and droning vocals; if the band was trying to impart a sense of distance, it has certainly succeeded.”

RAZORCAKE MAGAZINE
A marriage of gothic gloom, shoegazey echo ‘n’ howl, and the more experimental of the early skronk-punk tribe. Oddly catchy, they somehow get their hooks into you and drag you down a dark road you ain’t really sure you wanna go, but end up all the better for it. This would’ve easily fit into Subterranean’s “classic” catalogue thirty years ago, which is no small compliment. –Jimmy Alvarado (HoZac)

YVYNYL
“These black-clad punks have been making some of the rawest rock in the Philly scene for a couple years now, a sound they call ‘pure evil.’ It’s trashy and dense and comes spitting fire and acid. Everyone’s got days when they need to spit fire and acid, right?  Bring it.”

I MUST FIND ATLANTIS
The cover of this album looks as if it might be a photo of another angle of the property that the Mapledurham Watermill sits on (as pictured on the cover of Black Sabbath’s first, self-titled release). Appropriately so, the tail end of the 60’s and into the 70’s were a strange time for cults, witchcraft, and psychedelic rock music. Far-Out Fangtooth’s Pure & Disinterested may technically be a contemporary album, but its influence comes from those dark moments some decades ago. The music is dreary, low-fi and sludgy at times but yet somehow very listenable. Drawing from psych groups of the aforementioned time and also something that says “SST era Sonic Youth meets The Crystal Stilts”.