Welcome to the To The Teeth newsletter! Your weekly AI-free update of new heavy music. You can listen to the playlist on Spotify. If you like what you read, go to Patreon (receive a patch!) or Bandcamp (buy a patch!), or consider becoming a paid subscriber. Peppers are hot 🌶️!
“Lay your torches on every museum, filled with dead monstrosities, the superstitious veneration / No more heritage / destroy the past completely along with its abortive children: unauthentic present and rust-encrusted future”
🌶️ Moonspell
Gothic, Portugal (Napalm Records)
FFO: Tiamat, Katatonia, Rotting Christ
This is only up here because I deeply love this band. I am not sure if I’m still into the music they make anymore, though. Much of their recent output is a little bland to me. It lacks original ideas and some of it tips to the tacky, self-parody side (most of Hermitage, big chunks of 1755, bits of Extinct and Alpha Noir). But, since I deeply love this band, I’m going to look for things I do like here. The opening track has a great riff. I like the sharp chords and subtle synths. I like the dynamics. The vocals, meh. The lyrics, oof. “Someone died here / that was so fucking young”.
The promise was back to their roots, as a lot of bands this age do. And yes, there is something oldschool and back-to-basics in the sound on this record. But it’s not the brilliance of Irreligious, Sin/Pecado or The Antidote. The one it reminds me of most, is the tepid Darkness & Hope, one of my least favourite albums of theirs.
So, the only thing I can do is try a few more times. Maybe it’ll grow. Maybe I will find something really sympathetic that I haven’t heard yet. I will really try, but I don’t expect much of it.
🌶️ Mortem
Black, Norway (Peaceville Records)
FFO: Mayhem, Dimmu Borgir, Emperor
There are many ways to describe this band, but ultimately it’s just Norwegians (members of Arcturus, Thorns and 1349) having fun with old black metal.
There’s more: Soothsayer (atmospheric doom/sludge, Ireland), Zorn (black/crust, USA), a split from Abriction & A. Yólotl (🌶️ atmoblack, USA & Mexico), Witchsorrow (doom, UK) and Todomal (🌶️ atmospheric doom, Spain). The rest is in the playlist!
🌶️ Enslaved (progressive black, Norway)
🌶️ Runemagick (death/doom, Sweden)
🌶️ Rezn (psych doom/stoner, USA)
🌶️ Emptiness (black/death/post, Belgium)
Not-so-heavy album of the week: Deep Purple (hardrock, UK)
Next week: Haserot, Wailin Storms & Mourir.
What is your favourite? What did I miss? Let me know!
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