Album Review: Sasquatch, Fever Fantasy
Released today, Sasquatch‘s Fever Fantasy has been done, fully mastered, since March 2020. And yes, even before the world stopped it was called Fever Fantasy. The two-thirds-Los-Angeles-one-third-Boston trio finished work on it and it has sat ever since, waiting for the right time. Now, as the glut of everybody’s-back-type releases subsides and the band has already been on tour, Sasquatch are ready to strike. Fever Fantasy collects nine songs in a 42-minute run, and in some ways, it very much builds on their last album, 2017’s Maneuvers (review here), in terms of its structure, right down to the eight-minute “Ivy” taking sort of a near-centerpiece position as the longest track similar to how Maneuvers standout cut “Just Couldn’t Stand the Weather” was placed, where on many records it would certainly be the closer.
Maneuvers was the introduction of drummer Craig Riggs — also vocalist for Roadsaw, Kind, White Dynomite, etc., and owner of Mad Oak Studios, where Fever Fantasy, Maneuvers and at least some part of every Sasquatch LP since 2006’s II (discussed here) have been recorded — to the lineup alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Keith Gibbs and bassist Jason “Cas” Casanova, whose tenure goes back to 2010’s III (review here) and 2014’s IV (review here). The band hit the road hard for that album and Fever Fantasy shows how locked in they absolutely were by the time they hit the studio, tracking these songs with Andrew Schneider, who mixed the last album and here captures some of the heaviest tones Sasquatch have ever released.
Opening track “It Lies Beyond the Bay” (premiered here) sets out with sampled waves, then solo guitar, and with a near-Mastodonic snare fill, the full-weight crash-in of the song is unleashed at exactly 45 seconds into the song, which I’ve been hearing for over two years and is still able to elicit a ‘holy shit’ moment. Between the wash from Riggs‘ cymbals — Schneider has a very distinctive way of getting drum sounds; I’d put him in alongside Karl Daniel Lidén in that capacity — and the fullness and depth of tone from Gibbs and Casanova, Fever Fantasy is a bigger and at times more aggressive sounding take on who Sasquatch are.
There’s some flourish of organ in “It Lies Beyond the Bay” — not sure if that’s David Unger in a return guest spot or not — and that will return again in “Witch,” the aforementioned “Ivy” as well as side B’s “Voyager” and “Cyclops,” but the band’s focus is on beginning the salvo that side A becomes. Thus “It Lies Beyond the Bay” is set for full audience immersion, and with “Lilac” right behind it boasting a layered hook, urgent riff and likewise dense fuzz, the crashes and pulls just before its solo section doing well to set up the conveyed desperation and the vocal harmonies that follow a payoff unto themselves. “Witch” is no less a banger, but taps a classic desert-ish fuzz riff and settles into an easy-riding groove in a way that neither of the first tracks seemed to do. Side B’s “Save the Day, Ruin the Night” will more directly reference Kyuss with its “100 Degrees”-esque central progression, but “Witch” is no less Sasquatch‘s own for that. It goes to show just how much what one thinks of as modern American heavy rock is shaped in the band’s image.
Obviously a focal point and I suspect not the actual tracklisting centerpiece so that it could squeeze onto side a, “Ivy” arrives a bit like slamming into the wall, but one suspects that’s what was in mind. A slower roll has never been beyond Sasquatch‘s reach, and “Ivy” touches on psychedelia without losing its straight-ahead purpose, moving between drift and forward volume surge. A highlight solo leads into a quieter ending bookending the subdued start, and side B leadoff/actual-centerpiece “Live Snakes” kicks in with a decidedly grounded feel. Gibbs‘ jet-engine tonality isn’t to be understated here.
“Live Snakes” is stage-ready, as one might expect, and after the surprisingly hypnotic “Ivy,” it genuinely feels like the beginning of another record. I suspect with the pause required by the vinyl side split, Fever Fantasy allows a digestive stretch, a little bit of processing time, but one can appreciate how side B takes off as though daring the listener to keep up with the band, the band proving they can do whatever they want in terms of album structure and have it work. If “Live Snakes” is Fever Fantasy starting over, maybe it should be a little dizzying, and as they back “Live Snakes” with the speedier boogie of “Voyager” before turning to the denser-packed “Part of Not Knowing,” which is the only other song to reach over five minutes long and unfolds like a controlled demolition by the time it reaches its second half with the dreamy solo and some of Gibbs‘ lyrical repetitions over top.
Placed penultimate, “Save the Day, Ruin the Night” has vitality enough behind it to become a live favorite and a dead-ahead shove that bookends “Part of Not Knowing” with “Voyager” on the other side, giving that track all the more space of its own for redirecting the flow of Fever Fantasy toward the straightforward, classically-informed groove ahead of the meatier finale in “Cyclops,” which rolls out smoothly and has a build in its second half that warrants its position as the closer to some degree, the returning organ bolstering the capper with enough accent to reinforce the point of how much Sasquatch have achieved on this record, the one before it, and across the nearly 20 years since their 2004 self-titled debut helped usher in a new generation of heavy rock for the age of higher-speed internet and, eventually, social media.
That they are now veterans of stage and studio is writ large across Fever Fantasy — they simply own the sound — but especially as they’ve progressed in gelling the Gibbs/Cas/Riggs lineup via touring, the growth in the band continues to be palpable in the craft and performances of these songs. Established fans or newcomers, Sasquatch are their own most effective argument in favor of Sasquatch, and as statesmen of the US underground, they represent some of its finest in quality and work ethic. One wonders what they’ve been doing while biding their time for two plague years, but as Fever Fantasy is manifest at last, the crucial moment to focus on truly is right now. A band 18 years on from their debut pushing themselves to new levels is something rare and special. A record like Fever Fantasy makes that easier to understand.
Sasquatch, Fever Fantasy (2022)
Tags: California, Fever Fantasy, Los Angeles, Mad Oak Records, Sasquatch, Sasquatch Fever Fantasy
My CD arrived today! Good mail day as also got the Domkraft Slomatics split complete with your liner notes.