Review: Coral Fang by The Distillers

The Opinionated Beech

I guess this album is more of a “Penguin Modern Classic” than an actual and considered classic album, but it is a truly cohesive album.

11 tracks of “grown up” punk.

First let me tell you a little about The Distillers:

Founding member Brody Dalle-Homme. Formally Armstrong, formally Dalle, formally Bree Leslie Formally Bree Joanna Alice Robinson, an Australian who can play some sweet guitar, arguably has more balls than most of her counterparts and who can out-scream Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Layne Staley and I’m sure if pushed Dani Filth. Running from Melbourne to LA at a sweet young age, to pursue music and love. She released The Distillers first album “ The Distillers” in 2000, followed by “Sing Sing Death House” in 2002 and The Final, yet in my humble opinion,perfect album Coral Fang, in 2003
Brody along with bassist Ryan Sinn, Drummer Andy Granelli and guitarist Tony Bradley set out to move towards more metaphorical and more mature punk rock, music with soul and written with delicious poetic metaphor. I first discovered this album when I was 14, and I loved it, it spoke to me, but I sure as hell didn’t understand it yet, that would come at 20, along with a seriously destructive relationship. Songs like “The Hunger” “Hall of Mirrors” and “For Tonight You’re Only Here To Know” had renewed meaning, the feeling of being lost to your heart, but knowing that heart is broken… hoping and finding that there is life and love after such hurt and betrayal. I was dismantled, as in “ Dismantle Me” but was able to be put back together again.

“Drain the Blood”, the simple opener, laced with metaphor and attitude, A major E C E repeat to form a beautiful heartbeat like undercurrent, fitting for a song that claims:

“The heart pumps until it dies
Drain the blood, the heart is wise”

Its true, it does, so too does the heart of a relationship, platonic or romantic.

Coral Fang

“Dismantle Me” The second offering, is a much more punchy number, Brody grabbing you by your nuts regardless of if you have them or not, and making herself heard, along with the third “Die On A Rope” these are the two “punkiest” songs of the album and its easy to see why they were often the most cheered at live shows.

Dismantle Me, speaks of the hope after having your whole self destroyed.

“I fancy you, But I’ve been destitute”

Not wanting to have someone come near to your broken and beaten up life, but unable to deny you would like them to,

“Vultures circle around
Feathers float, wings flap, beaks pound
And though my hearts exposed
I could never re-undo you”

Speaking of the fact that although what has gone before has royally screwed you you wouldn’t change it for anything, it is what made you, what put you where you landed, what made you turn heart to guts.

Die On A Rope, is the story of an adulteress.. (Brody was one) the modern day Hestor Pryne

“The wound is wise for primal black eyes,
Theres a scarlet letter in my chest”

This is Brody at her most feminist, most blunt and most honest.this is punk the way only she knows how…

“Tell me something, Tell me something?
Will I die will I die on a rope?”

Much akin to Hestor, Brody is waiting to have her punishment passed, the women of modern day is still as revered as a heartless bitch should she cheat, or end a relationship to be with another man whom she loves (and married and went on to have 2 babies with) as she would have been centuries ago. How far we women have come, yet how little some things have changed.
Wishing, praying, hoping she didn’t love or was loved anymore, wishing to be free and not be owned…

“ I will give you a holy white rose”

(a symbol of freedom)

“cut the tongue from your head”

(But never speak of it to anyone.)

The Gallow is God, is a slower more melodic number, showing her early 90s influences through and through.
The condemned woman is leading the way to her “Gallow” be it literal of figurative, her Gallow being the LA punk scene, being the band she has, the record she is writing, but she is willingly walking there, head held high, as anything is better than where she has been.

Using rhyme and repetition as skillfully as Lennon and Cobain, she really allows this song to speak for itself, her voice is soulful against a driving drum and bass backdrop, almost smooth jazz,almost grunge, almost punk; her voice is mesmerizing. Almost like a lullaby. Many nights did I fall asleep to this on my iPod.

The title track and middle album “Coral Fang” is again, just lines steeped in metaphor set to a punk rock/ grunge/ desert theme classically punk guitar and backing vocals, coupled with the growls of a lioness who is as poetic as Shakespeare, she certainly knows how to make a point – without ever making it.

“When the fang sinks down in (sinks down in)
Makes your eyes white and roll right into him
When the coral stains the skin

(stains the skin)
Disease is cheap, scars are polished clean”

Often referred to and considered to be about shooting heroin (because you know,every ex-addict writes for their entire life about heroin… yeah right.) I really do not see it, maybe you have to shoot heroin to, though that isn’t really something I would like to lend my arm to. I feel it is referring to being back on a hook, on the hook of a new love and new life and new romance and how scary, yet exhilarating and cleansing it is.

“The Hunger”, my personal favourite of this album has seen many plays in my life.. a song I didn’t first like so much as a naive-to-life and love 14-year-old. I always loved how she screamed “DON’T GO” yet could maintain such beauty in her voice and soothing caressing sounds later in the song and album.

At 19, I saw this song as a woman screaming for a man from the broken wreckage of what was theirs; not wanting him to go and leave her, but being bitter that he would ever think of doing so “hold on to the memories, its all you’ve got” sounded as snarky as I was, sounded as broken and fucked up as my relationship was, sounded like this song was written to put into words what I could not. It sounded like a toxic and sick love, it felt like the love I had and lost, and as the addict could not give up neither could I.

Then, at 21, I met my husband and the song took and a whole new life, this was of never wanting to be apart, even for a second, being so in love you can’t stand the thought, being so engulfed, entangled, intoxicated… It was now even more beautiful and I was the adult women, looking back to the stupid girl, telling her to hold onto the memories because thats all she was left with.

I am the girl that gives of herself completely for this new love, because two people become one, its painful to watch but you surrender yourself because you can not do anything else.

“Holy eyes, I never knew

I’d beg down at your feet,”

The engulfing hungering eyes of Renato were never summed up in such an astute way and I look into them everyday and consider myself a writer.

“Hold on tight

I never knew I’d know much more than this
Open sky

the wave of pain the scent of you is bliss
Hungry eyes

they stare at me I know

I know
Don’t Go”

This is lovemaking more poetic than Baudelaire, Poe or William. This is pure unadulterated skies-are-blue-above-us love. Staring into the soul of your love as they stare back into yours, you are so exposed you are sure it will hurt, but it doesn’t ,you escape and it is ecstasy.

This woman knows how to feel love and knows how to write it.

“Hall of Mirrors” is a return to dripped-in-metaphor lyrics with a punchy not-quite-punk, not-quite-classic rock overture.

Is this self-exploration? Spiritual exploration? Disdain for another? Self-motivation? All of the above or none at all? Is it a massive “fuck you and have a nice day”?

I still don’t have it figured out.

Either way this woman means business

“Take your time

come on get what you came for
“Don’t waste my time

come on get what you came for”

is the bridge, the bridge between two people it would seem now distant strangers who were once something so much more.

“I come down like a bloody rain

cuts up flesh sky,
Pulse beating under, yeah
Meat petals bloom in a bone garden
Ain’t no god, no ghost gonna save you now”

This has to be one of the most descriptive lyrics I have ever had the pleasure of hearing, it shred my ears with its honesty. It pains me to hear the venom inside the words, but it exhilarates me, I have had that fire in my belly and venom in my bite and to release it, is kind of an orgasm that reaches from your belly to your throat along your tongue and out into the world, to cut up the flesh sky of your opponent…

Is this angry missionary position sex? Is this hate sex because you have nothing more to give? Is it goodbye sex? Or are you simply standing tall over an empty shell of what used to be you?

I have no idea 10 years after my first listen… but if it is angry sex, this women must be an animal in the sack!

“Beat Your Heart Out” is a very upbeat love song (but not a love song), pop song, with indie leanings. For me, the only song which fits on the album but could also fit into Spinnerettes work (Brody’s new band).

Its a love song to what once was, it is a final “goodbye and here is this song I wrote for you” song?

The heart is beating faster as I run to get the hell outta here kind of song.

“Baby, you make my heart beat faster.
Baby, you make my heart beat faster. I know.
Let alone to rest alone,
Yeah, you’re making me.
I had to run the damage is done,
I give it up, I give it up.
There’s nothing left so take the rest,
Yeah you’re draining me.
I set it alight it burns so bright,
Stab it out, stab it out.”

I love how “baby, you make my heart beat faster” usually synonymous with falling in love, its coupled with “this cardio as I run as fast as I can from you” is used to trap you in a web of deceit so proudly spun by this master huntress… This is not a love song, she proclaims in the song’s video and only after many listens did I understand why.

“Love Is Paranoid” is the ninth track and again is a trip into confusion. Is this about your new love? Is this not about love? Is this addiction, obsession? Is this how it once was, how you wish for it to be, or is this the straight-forward love song that “Beat Your Heart Out” is not?

“I lift the veil up to reveal a fascination”

Marriage? Bride?
Is this a funeral veil, lifted to be fascinated at the corpse she smugly stands over?

“For what you do to me,

oh, baby, there’s no measure
I’ve taken everything, now I want to give it
I left the lights on so you stumble in devotion
So easy, so easy, it’s left unspoken ”

She switches again, this in unfettered desire and devotion, I felt it the first nights and weeks in bed with my love, my husband… I lifted the veil to my soul and he found it fascinating

Is this a love song? I am actually reconsidering my entire approach to this song as I write this review.

Now I’m not sure, from 14-18 I was convinced it was, but I was always as blunt as a spade, so for things to have a hidden meaning meant nothing to me, from 19-21 this was a song of obsession, dark romance, wanting something you briefly have but will never have again.

Now at 23, almost 24, at 3 am, this song means something more, this song is a love story.

“I’ve come to realize you’re the only thing I want,
I’m falling all the way in”

Could this album of complete and random metaphor have hidden amongst its meat petals of blunt and obvious love song?

Well-played, Ms. Dalle, well-played.

“For Tonight You’re Only Here To Know” is the best crafted song of this album and tied for favourite with “The Hunger”, though only played once live, which is a shame for anyone whoever went to see The Distillers.

This for me was always a song of not wanting to fall in love, to be two bodies in a room and whatever happens happens.

“Im done with men” I have said more than once in my “ romantic career” wanting to just have sex without strings, to not feel, to not ache and hurt and long for another, I never could do it, I never even could bring myself to try, but I wanted to want it and I wanted to put the world to rites for the hurt it had caused me.

“Just tonight I would,

I would lay here for you,
just tonight I would,

I would sink here for you,
just tonight I would,

I would slum here for you,
just tonight I would,

I would die.”

You can have all of me, just tonight, then you will never have me again.

I think most people have felt that at some point in their lives, when intimacy scares the living crap out of them, I know my husband certainly did, I did, I know my ex did, I know my friends did.

Its almost as universal as love is.

“You’ll follow me till the end, till the end,
you’ll swallow me till there’s nothing left,
you’ll follow me till the end, till the end,
you’ll swallow me till there’s nothing left.”

Every man is a predator, and you are unwilling prey.

This is a perfect song, it speaks of acceptance that it will happen, you will fall in love again, but you steadfastly deny those allegations. It speaks of finding that someone that makes you feel, that all they have to do is sigh to make you happy

“I really want you to sigh,
Never in tune, just sigh”

It speaks of becoming the willing prey, the offal of you being devoured as the main course.

“Death sex” is a lesson in jamming and feedback loops. 12.17 seconds of pure raw energy,

“Shoot your gun,
Baby I come undone”

This is sex, pure animalistic sex… This is ‘I want you’ and ‘I want you bad’ this is the “Love Fuck.”

This is the amazing high to the emotional roller coaster of Coral Fang

Tracklisting

All songs by Brody Dalle

“Drain the Blood”
“Dismantle Me”
“Die on a Rope”
“The Gallow Is God”
“Coral Fang”
“The Hunger”
“Hall of Mirrors”
“Beat Your Heart Out”
“Love Is Paranoid”
“For Tonight You’re Only Here to Know”
“Death Sex”