Left-leaning fans of heavy rock will relish spending 19 minutes listening to the fiery four-song EP, Born on Fire, from New Jersey’s Black Wail. Like Dave Grohl, singer/guitarist Michael Tarlazzi originally was known for his drumming. Now, as front man of this mixed-gender quintet, he channels his inner Grohl with throaty vocals on “Our Heaven”—written in response to 2017’s “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.—and sounds prickly sweet on “Orbits,” a grungy stoner-rock track punctuated with a closing drum solo straight out of 1975. The melodically metallic “See Conspiracy” and the doomy title track, meanwhile, take aim at the former president and his cult of followers. A second EP, titled Dead Mountain and reportedly veering off in even stonier directions, is due out later this year.
