🌶️ To The Teeth: Gatecreeper won't settle for standstill
Plus: Pallbearer, Svrm, Hemotoxin, Tzompantli, Kerry King, Botanist, Akvan, Göden, Charlotte Wessels, Ufomammut and much more!
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 🌶️!
New Albums
🌶️ Gatecreeper
Death, USA (Nuclear Blast)
FFO: Entombed, Outer Heaven, Tomb Mold
Gatecreeper is going full shredfest on their new album, incorporating heavy metal noodling and soaring leads, partly in favor of the hardcore-tinged stomp of before. Modern death metal bands don’t just settle for churning out the same record again and again - see Blood Incantation and their synthesizer project, Tomb Mold and their latest prog death album, and Gatecreeper themselves, who tried their hands on low and slow doom. I applaud them for venturing out, not caring too much what others think and pushing every boundary they can find. Metal should be without gods, masters and rules, and Gatecreeper fly that flag up high on this cool new record (that still also slaps like a motherfucker).
🌶️ Pallbearer
Doom, USA (Nuclear Blast)
FFO: Warning, Khemmis, Elder
Another band that’s refreshing their own sound. Pallbearer are still the same sadboys, don’t worry. They just lean a bit more into 40 Watt Sun than Warning. I’m not complaining.
🌶️ Hemotoxin
Prog death/thrash, USA (Pulverised Records)
FFO: Death, Vektor, Revocation
We all miss Death, and Hemotoxin channel a fair bit from that band: it’s a little bit like the band who recorded Symbolic while listening to Leprosy. Retro this is not though, and derivative it’s not either. This is the fresh, exciting progressive thrash/death attack I needed today.
🌶️ Svrm
Atmospheric black, Ukraine (independent)
FFO: Drudkh, Afsky, Fen
Svrm is consistent: very good atmospheric black metal on his second ep this year.
🌶️ Tzompantli
Death/doom, USA (20 Buck Spin)
FFO: Xibalba, Spectral Voice, Bolt Thrower
Good death metal, with good doom leanings, and good meso-american, pre-Columbian influences. This is good.
There’s more: Slerry Sling (thrash, USA), Göden (🌶️ doom/death, USA), Nocturnus AD (tech death, USA), Ufomammut (psych sludge/stoner/doom, Italy), Celestial Season (🌶️ doom/death, The Netherlands), Pain (industrial, Sweden), Botanist (experimental post-black, USA), Akvan (🌶️ folk/black, Iran), Pathology (brutal death, USA), Elvellon (symphonic, Germany), BAT (🌶️ heavy/speed, USA), Strychnos (🌶️ black/death, Denmark - w/ members of Undergang, Myrkur), The Last of Lucy (tech/prog death, USA) and a live album from Ayreon (symphonic, The Netherlands - I was at this show and it ruled). The rest is in the playlist!
Six new songs
🌶️ Charlotte Wessels (symphonic/various, The Netherlands)
🌶️ Totengott (doom/black/thrash, Spain)
🌶️ Bewitcher (black/speed, USA)
🌶️ Serj Tankian (alternative/nu-metal, USA)
🌶️ Krater (black, Germany)
🌶️ Mortal Wound (death, USA)
The rest is in the playlist!
Not-so-heavy & next week
Not-so-heavy album of the week: Billie Eilish (pop, USA)
I’m looking forward to next week because of: Rotting Christ, Trail of Tears, Mortal Wound and a split from Haxanü & Greve.
What is your favourite? What did I miss? Let me know!
I didn't realize Rope Sect was dropping a new album until a friend told me about it, and while it's not quite metal, it's plenty dark enough: https://ropesect.bandcamp.com/album/estrangement
Hey Peter! Pity we didn't say hi at RB. Just a big thanks for putting into my attention the magic of Matt Stephens via the tag Avant-garde Brutal DM that you put to Effluence. Now I recall that I had read about Effluence in the past thanks to Ian Chainey but it didn't give me a lasting impression. In 2024 giving it the proper time it has although by no means BDM is my favorite kind of extreme metal... Your Avant-garde tag did the trick!