🌶️ To The Teeth: Blood Incantation and the sweet victory of dorky death

Plus: Sinistro, Lowen, Cosmic Putrefaction, 1349, Äera, Undeath, Doedsmaghird, Curta'n Wall and much more!

Oct 05, 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 🌶️!

Big sunglasses, very important. Always big sunglasses, cool band.

New Albums

🌶️ Blood Incantation

Progressive death, USA (Century Media)

FFO: Morbid Angel, Tomb Mold, Pink Floyd, Opeth, Yes, X-Files, History Channel’s Ancient Aliens

One of the best albums of the year. There, I’ve said it. Blood Incantation was already in the upper echelons of dorky death, but with Absolute Elsewhere they’ve outdone theirselves on every level. It’s not so much the pairing of gnarly death metal and progrock that’s so clever, it’s how they pair them. They way they pull themes from the metal bits into the prog passages, and the other way around. The tension is built so fucking good. They manage to throw in a galloping Vhöl-ish riff (I can’t remember who said this or where, but I stand by the sentiment: these nerds can shred), cling on a Symbolic-era Death passage and then just as easily dive into Simon & Garfunkel harmony. It’s like completely disappearing into a lavalamp. Again: just throwing shit together isn’t the thing that I think is so good here, it’s the fact it all works so well. The composition of these two monolithic tracks is so well thought out and compelling that I don’t think any other death metal album can top this for me personally (well, apart from that one Swedish band that incidentally was an inspiration for Blood Incantation’s proggy explorations).

🌶️ Sinistro

Sludge/doom/post, Portugal (Alma Mater)

FFO: SubRosa, The Gathering, Moonspell

I’m such a sucker for metal that has that distinctive Mediterranean, warm glow. Listen to Sin/Pecado, one of my favourite albums of all time, and you’ll know what I mean. Sinistro brings that glow as well - not so surprising that they’ve been signed to Moonspell’s Alma Mater label and they sing in Portuguese exclusively. I loved their two albums with Patrícia Andrade, and met her after a show - what a personality. New singer Priscila Da Costa has big shoes to fill, but she fits ‘em. The two are not the same and I do miss Andrade (who’s in post-punkband Louvado Abismo now, not really my thing), but nothing is forever and I’m happy Sinistro is back with another beautiful album, that boasts that distinctive warm glow to push away the autumn just a little bit longer.

🌶️ Lowen

Progressive doom, UK (Church Road Records)

FFO: Oceans of Slumber, Kylesa, eh.. Mastodon?

Really hard to give good references for this band - but that’s not a bad sign. Lowen have their very own sound, with their crushing riffs and the intense melismatic singing. They’re heavy and groovy, doomy and dark, with amazing vocal harmonies and a touch of the Middle East in their scales, themes and some of their instrumental work (there are many things for which I am a sucker). Never heard of this band, but this album is blowing me away. Great surprise!

There’s more: Cosmic Putrefaction (🌶️ death, Italy), 1349 (black, Norway), Curta’n Wall (folk/black/stuff, USA), Äera (atmoblack, Germany), Undeath (death, USA), Häxenzijrkell (black from Germany), Morke (castle metal, USA), an ep from Light of the Morning Star (gothic, UK), Sørgelig (black, Greece), Abhorration (🌶️ death, Norway), Nubivagant (black, Italy), Abramelin (death, Australia), Maul (death, USA), Devenial Verdict (avantgarde death, Finland). The rest is in the playlist!