Scene and Heard – CCXCII :  Spanish Orange – RGF (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Imagine if Mudhoney had paid their dues in the industrial wastelands of Birmingham, England in the late sixties. Or conversely Black Sabbath had invented grunge whilst touring around the American North-West. You can’t imagine either of those scenarios? Well, take a listen to Spanish Orange by RGF and you get a sonic glimpse of what either of those alternative scenarios might have resulted in. It’s a song that blends the slow, doom laden riffs of the originators of heavy metal with the uncompromising, raw edged onslaught that those stalwarts of grunge were known for.

And because of these conflicting and disparate sounds that seem to entwine at the heart of their music they are a difficult band to place both in time and also geographically speaking. The best you can say is that they probably exist somewhere in the western world sometime from the seventies onwards. That’s actually a great quality to have. Why would you want to be identifiable as this genre or that style when you can be a mercurial, hard-hitting and highly unique blend of references?