🌶️ To The Teeth: Katatonia, For I Am King, Nothingness, Ihsahn, Lamp of Murmuur, Tribunal, Metallica & more!
Sometimes late, always heavy
Welcome to the all new To The Teeth newsletter! Your weekly update of new heavy music. You can listen to almost everything in the playlist on Spotify. If you like what you read and want help keep this in the air: please head over to Patreon or to my compilation: The Taste of Teeth (also for a small batch of merch). Peppers are hot 🌶️!
👄 New: comments! All the way down - please get in touch!
New albums
🌶️ Katatonia (gothic/alternative from Sweden. FFO: Opeth, Paradise Lost, Amorphis)
I’m a Katatonia fanboy. Ever since I’ve seen them live in 2001 (with Opeth, BWP tour!) I’ve been in love with all they do. And the new album is no exception, it’s a beautiful continuation from the excellent The Fall of Hearts and City Burials albums. There is no other band that (still) combine melancholy and beauty so well.
🌶️ For I Am King (metalcore/melodeath from The Netherlands. FFO: The Black Dahlia Murder, Darkest Hour, Unearth)
Energetic, fun band with a straightforward sound - they just call it ‘metal’ and that is as refreshing as it is correct. Vocalist Alma has cords that kill, and I really love the guitar leads on this new record :it’s all very ambitious. I’m not a big metalcore fan and not every song here is for me, but when the leads are riffy and trashy, I’m aboard.
🌶️ Nothingness (death from the USA. FFO: Tomb Mold, Morbid Angel, Blood Incantation)
Nothingness like their death metal twisted, elusive, dark and intense. And luckily, so do I. Everlasting Spew knows how to dig up this kind of class death metal that catapults the listener into hyperspace. The drummer is also in North Dakota’s (and I would like to emphasize that they’re from North Dakota) Ghost Bath.
🌶️ Tribunal (gothic/death doom from Canada. FFO: My Dying Bride, Shape of Despair, Candlemass)
I grew up with the gloom and doom of the nineties, and Vancouver’s Tribunal - a brand new band - knows what I like: extremely heavy riffs with haunting vocals. Music you’d hear in a post-apocalyptic cathedral. ‘Of creeping moss and crumbled stone’, indeed.
There’s more: Riverside (prog from Poland), Dryad (🌶️ black/death from the USA, Imperium Dekadenz (black from Germany), Sáasil (🌶️ atmoblack from Mexico - you liked last weeks Cora’s Heart? You’ll like this - another V.C.H. project), Celestial Wizard (heavy/power from the USA), The Gauntlet (black ‘n roll from the USA - missed last week), Defy the Curse (death/crust from The Netherlands), Sodality (black from Poland or the UK, I’m not sure), Twilight Force (roquefort/brie from Sweden), Mansion (doom from Finland - missed last week, thanks Niels), Fugitive Wizard (raw black/ambient from the USA) and a new ep from Sabaton (power from Sweden). The rest is in the playlist!
Speaking of which: I’ve added a track from the latest Krallice album, Psychagogue, to the playlist, since it is finally on Spotify. Don’t get confused, it is an album from summer last year - a top-30 album of the year for me, no less.
New singles
Lot’s of peppers, what did I tell you!? Thanks in part to two singles that came out just a few hours after I had sent the newsletter last week: excellent new Lamp Of Murmuur & Ulthar. There are great new tracks from The Ocean and Insomnium, a second good new song from Metallica, and a filthy filthy beast by two bands who cover almost all extreme metal genres between the two of them. Plus a new Ihsahn! I’m happy.
There are new songs out from: Ihsahn (🌶️ experimental/avant-black from Norway), Metallica (🌶️ heavy/thrash from the USA), Full Of Hell & Primitive Man (🌶️ powerviolence/death from the USA & sludge/doom/noise from the USA), The Ocean (🌶️ atmospheric prog/post from Germany), Insomnium (🌶️ melodeath from Finland), Haken (prog from the UK), Lamp Of Murmuur (🌶️ black from the USA), Ulthar (🌶️ black/death from the USA), Tygers of Pan Tang (🌶️ heavy from the UK), Hellripper (black/speed from the UK) and The Abbey (doom from Finland - w/ members of Shape of Despair, ex-Sentenced). The rest is in the playlist!
Non-metal & next week
Non-metal album of the week: Raül Refree (experimental/post-classical from Spain)
I’m looking forward to next week because of: …And Oceans, Schavot & Oozing Wound.
Not entirely done with 2022 yet? Listen to the 101 best heavy songs from last year in this playlist.
Let me know what you think! What was your favourite? Do you like the new newsletter? Should I change anything? What did I miss?
‘roquefort/brie from Sweden’ 😆
Great write ups! I didn't know Critical Defiance was dropping new music already. Their album last year was in my top 10.
I think you missed that Periphery dropped a new single. I know that the metal community is split on whether they're metal, but I think so and I feel like in the past you've included them, so seems worth mentioning.