THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Born of a shared love of hair metal, partying, and the reckless spirit of rock ’n’ roll, Washington D.C./ Carborro, N.C. duo Bat Fangs bring a fiery combination of shredderistic guitars and heavily harmonized hooks. Singer/guitarist Betsy Wright (Ex Hex) and drummer Laura King (Speed Stick) united after playing a show together with their other bands. Their goal: Pushing Wright’s pop-focused songwriting in a bolder, brasher direction. Taking up the primary songwriting role and shifting from bass to guitar, Wright steps outside of the typical Ex Hex sound with Bat Fangs’ rowdy rock.
Their sophomore LP Queen Of My World is a reeling, rocking mass of guitar and vocals that serves as both a reclamation and a re-evaluation of a sound that was once a breeding ground for a particularly egregious brand of dude-bro cock rock. Paying tribute to the glam and metal sounds of their youth while offering a modernized alternative to an era of music that deified toxic masculinity as a core value, Wright and King represent a new model of rock stardom that’s less about the stars and more about the rock.
On Talk Tough, the first song written for this LP, Wright sings of music carrying her into a near supernatural state, describing herself as being “in the cosmic sea,” and inviting others “crawl out the window on to a higher plain.” This otherworldliness permeates throughout the record, applying magical perspectives to real lived experiences.
Using musical nostalgia as its crystal ball, Queen Of My World looks back through life’s little moments and sees the mystical within the ordinary. Though many of the songs are autobiographical, at its core the record is a lens into other worlds, gazing into timelines that could have been and childhood memories so distant they may as well be past lives.
One such reminiscence takes place on the title track, which reflects on a wild adolescence of drugs and destruction, with an aggressive guitar attack to match. Underneath the high-octane teenage antics is a genuine tribute to the unique friendships that can only form in the pseudo-invincibility of youth.
As the record delves deeper into these alternate dimensions, it becomes increasingly psychedelic. The culmination comes on closing cut Into the Weave, an instrumental jam that builds over a repeated tom groove into a full-throttle barrage of guitar and drums. As it trails off, one last vocal harmony shines through, a sign that we’ve exited the mythical realm Queen Of My World occupies, and moved on to the next.”
