Fang Island

8 p.m. Wednesday, November 10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Nov 4, 2010 at 4:00 am

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Through the lens of Brooklyn's Fang Island, Earth is an optimistic orb overflowing with positive energy, and Andrew W.K. is the hard-partying, bipartisan president of everything. Harnessing the righteous power of arena chants, infinite guit-harmonies and prog caliber climaxes, the quintet's self-titled debut plays like the last minute of "The Boys Are Back in Town" fighting the bridge of "Lean on Me" for radio bandwidth on a joy-riding Camaro. Fang Island's unsubtle Pixy Stix riffs risk masking the band's impressive balance. Its music teeters dangerously between major chord overload and the academic pretensions of its "mostly instrumental math rock" genre. But instead, Fang Island's affirming anthems are easily learned secret handshakes.