The sludgy Portland stoner-rock veterans Red Fang have a long history of making enjoyably ridiculous music videos with director Whitey McConnaughy; their 2013 “Blood Like Cream” clip, for instance, starred Fred Armisen and a horde of hungry zombies. Today, Red Fang have announced the forthcoming LP Arrows, their first in five years. They’ve also dropped a video for the title track, and it shows all the good and bad things that can go down when you come into possession of a katana sword.

Arrows follows 2016’s Only Ghosts, and Red Fang recorded it with Decemberists producer Chris Funk, their longtime producer. The song “Arrows” is a satisfying piece of scuzzed-out riffage, and it’s best experienced with that video. The clip is a series of truly entertaining comedy sketches in which we learn what happens when a group of schlubs get their hands on samurai weaponry. Watch it below.

In a press release, Red Fang frontman Aaron Beam, who participated in last week’s Two Minutes To Late Night salute to the Rolling Stones, says:

WOW! We are SO EXCITED to finally release this record to the world! We finished the album way back in December 2019 and then… something happened that is not worth discussing… Making this record felt totally loose and easy. It felt like we were just doing whatever the fuck we wanted, and not overthinking anything. That attitude reminded me a lot of what it felt like to make Murder The Mountains. The result doesn’t sound anything like MTM, but it has more of that vibe.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Take It Back”
02 “Unreal Estate”
03 “Arrows”
04 “My Disaster”
05 “Two High”
06 “Anodyne”
07 “Interop-Mod”
08 “Fonzi Scheme”
09 “Days Collide”
10 “Rabbits In Hive”
11 “Why”
12 “Dr. Owl”
13 “Funeral Coach”

Arrows is out 6/4 on Relapse. “Fonzi Scheme” is a very good song title.