🌶️ To The Teeth: Curses, columns, giants, gates, scars and pests

Black Curse, Serpent Column, Iotunn, Massive Scar Era, Pest Control, Ataraxie, Cradle of Filth, Jinjer & much more!

Oct 27, 2024

Welcome to the To The Teeth newsletter! Your weekly update of new heavy music. You can listen to (most) everything in the playlist on Spotify. If you like what you read, go to Patreon (receive a patch!) & Bandcamp (buy a patch!). Peppers are hot 🌶️!

A newsletter is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

New Albums

🌶️ Black Curse

Death/black, USA (Sepulchral Voice Records)

FFO: Teitanblood, Grave Miasma, Concrete Winds

This is an attack. An attack on good taste, on your senses, on music and humanity as a whole. Members of Khemmis, Primitive Man, Ulthar and Spectral Voice decided everything else needed to be destroyed and while they already did that in 2020 with their debut, this new one is to level everything else that might have remained. Like removing every shard of glass in a broken window. And eat it.

🌶️ Serpent Column

Avantgarde black, USA (self released)

FFO: Krallice, Hoplites, Theophonos

I thought this dude was done with Serpent Column, one of the best recent avantgarde black metal bands around. Never let them know your next move, I guess.

🌶️ Iotunn

Progressive/melodic death, Denmark (Metal Blade Records)

FFO: Barren Earth, Borknagar, Ne Obvliscaris

Proggy melodeath from guys without bandshirts: you all know what you’re getting into here. This new Iotunn (which means giant, I’m told) is super creamy and sweet, and goes in like greasy raw herring. Don’t ask. Iotunn is looking to become the prog-melodeath act to beat, with beautifully arranged songs in pristine production ánd the Faroese singer of Hamferð and Barren Earth.
I do think it’s a little bit problematic that he’s such a distinctive voice who’s in three bands who all sound, to me, more and more alike. What if James Hetfield was in Megadeth and Anthrax as well? Hmm.

🌶️ Ataraxie

Funeral doom, France (Ardua Music)

FFO: Evoken, Mournful Congregation, Bell Witch

Last week’s Fórn was a bit of surprise for me, I didn’t know I’d like their new one as much as I do. This new Ataraxie was already on my radar, and they deliver: morose and intense funeral doom with a whispering French dude, probably scolding me for pronouncing something on the menu completely wrong (lyrical themes: Despair, Torture, Suffering - so business as usual in French hospitality). Two great doom albums in one month, that’s quite rare. By the way, they share a guitarist with Sordide who released a cool new record simultaneously

🌶️ Pest Control

Crossover thrash, UK (Quality Control HQ)

FFO: Power Trip, Municipal Waste, Iron Reagan

I sometimes wonder how long hardcore infused thrash metal will be fun. We’ve had a few bands that were really nailing it, a lot that came close and even more that just didn’t have it. Pest Control fucking nails it. Gnarly thrash riffs with a punkrock bite. Loved the debut last year, love this new ep.

🌶️ Living Gate

Death, Belgium/USA (Relapse Records)

FFO: Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Immolation

Living Gate, with members from the Amenra-clique and Yob’s bass player, is a little bit like Bloodbath. They’re dudes who grew up on Altars of Madness, Leprosy and Left Hand Path, and now started to miss buzzsawing and gurgling. Living Gate is on the technical, knotty side of that path and I’m really enjoying the vibe they’re channeling.

🌶️ Massive Scar Era

Alternative/progressive, Canada (self released)

FFO: Acrassicauda, Voice of Baceprot, Znous

I haven’t liked everything Cherine Amr does with this project, but regardless: the Egyptian musician who moved to Canada is a badass fucking hero for starting a heavy metal band in early zeroes Egypt. This ep is an exploration of Egyptian ‘zar’, a healing cult with musical, dance and ritualistic traditions. The combination of those rhythms and chants with her buzzing metal is right up my alley.

There’s more: Gaerea (black, Portugal), Bütcher (black/speed, Belgium), Gigan (prog/tech death, USA), Schammasch (avantgarde black, Switzerland), Mercyless (death/thrash, France), Sedimentum (death, Canada), Burial Remains (death, The Netherlands), Sallow Moth (death, USA), Sentient Horror (death, USA), Vananidr (melodic black/death, Sweden), The Spirit (black/death, Germany), a split from Aethyrick & Marras (both black from Finland), an ep from Enforced (thrash crossover, USA) & Devin Townsend (prog, Canada). The rest is in the playlist!