🌶️ To The Teeth: primal black, death/black, blackened gothic and atmoblack, but also: hardcore punk!
Spirit Possession, Aara, Netherlands, Gel, a great black metal compilation and also: Metallica.
Welcome to the 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 Bandcamp: The Taste of Teeth (patches!). Peppers are hot 🌶️!
New Albums
🌶️ Spirit Possession (black from the USA. FFO: Funereal Presence, Devil Master, Negative Plane)
Controlled chaos. It might seem like Spirit Possession plays an primal kind of black metal, but appearances are a little bit deceiving. This is insanity with patches of thrash, noise, death, heavy and pure adrenaline, all cut to pieces and shot through the vast vacuum of space. Members of Vouna (live) and Ulthar are in this. Blegh!-egh-egh-egh…
🌶️ Aara (atmoblack from Switzerland. FFO: Blut Aus Nord, Mare Cognitum, Ultha)
Nice atmospheric black albums are ten a penny. Good ones are harder to come by. Aara makes good ones. This is part three of a trilogy based on a book about one ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ from 1820, but you don’t have to care about the theme (to be perfectly honest: I don’t) to enjoy the music. This all you want from atmoblack, with a sprinkle of extra melodic vitriol.
🌶️ Netherlands (psych noise from the USA. FFO: KEN Mode, Big Business, Whores)
I swear this has nothing to do with where I’m from. Such a cool band with a cool, completely unique sound. Noisey and progressive and harsh, and even when you know that, it’s still like nothing you could ever expect.
🌶️ Gel (hardcore punk from the USA. FFO: Gulch, Zulu, Candy)
I don’t do (nor like) a lot of hardcore, but this is great! Everything here oozes steadfastness and authenticity - as hardcore should be, and then coupled with great riffs, good grooves and fucking great vocals. I’m totally on board.
🌶️ Sermon (prog/post from the UK. FFO: Soen, Porcupine Tree, Katatonia)
A prog/post band with a distinctive, non-derivative sound, eureka! The music here is complex, but listenable and relistenable and as a matter of fact, I want to listen to it again.
🌶️ Demonstealer (death/black/thrash from India. FFO: Cognizance, Obscura, Hath)
Quality death metal with strains of black and thrash passages. This is a solo project from Mumbai musician Sahil Makhija, but with a long list of guests from Aborted, Ne Obliviscaris, First Fragment, Cradle of Filth, and Hannes Grossmann himself. Makhija puts them to good use, with a strong political message of anti-racism, against right-wing politicians, disinformation and religious extremism.
🌶️ Dark Side of the Sacred Star (black metal compilation)
Peaceville is not just cleaning up the attic. They’ve invited a who’s who of second wave black metal to chip in for this compilation. There are demo’s, dug up old tracks and completely new songs, even from completely new bands. There are some true pearls to be found: new Dødheimsgard, his dark twin Doedsmaghird, new Hellripper, new Mortuary Drape, new Mortem and of course the new Kvist demo as most shining examples.
Note: there’s a version of the album up on Spotify, but it doesn’t include the first 12 songs, and most of the good stuff is there. I’m also not entirely sure when this was officially out. It says march 3, but I got the update yesterday and then the bandcamp page didn’t include the first 12 tracks for a couple of hours, either. I’ve also seen tracks disappear later (like the new track from Blasphemer’s new band RUiM, although the description is still up). So, yeah. Who knows what the hell is going on. It’s this kind of chaos that is also proper second wave black metal I guess.
There’s more: Ohhms (sludge/post from the UK), Allfather (groove/doom/sludge from the UK), Rotten Sound (grind from Finland), End (🌶️ black from Italy), Kommand (death from the USA), Unpure (black/thrash/speed from Sweden), Thron (black from Germany - w/ drummer from Aara), Tilintetgjort (avantgarde black from Norway), Ad Infinitum (), Mammon’s Throne (doom/sludge from Australia - out 1/4), Olde Throne (🌶️ atmoblack from New Zealand), Blaze of Sorrow (atmoblack/folk from Italy) and Dai-Ichi (black from Idunno - out 1/4).
New songs
There are new songs out from: Metallica (thrash from the USA), Xasthur (depressive black/ambient from the USA), Cloak (gothic/black from the USA), Nervosa (thrash from Brazil), Runemagick (death/doom from Sweden), Sól án Varma (🌶️ black from Iceland - w/ members of members of Misþyrming, Naðra, Carpe Noctem, Árstíðir Lífsins, Svartidauði, Wormlust etc), Raven (heavy/speed from the UK), Cattle Decapitation (prog death/grind fro the USA), Tsjuder (black from Norway), Enforced (thrash/crossover from the USA) and Johnny the Boy (🌶️ black/doom from the UK members of Crippled Black Phoenix). The rest is in the playlist!
Non-heavy & next week
Non-heavy albums of the week: Altin Gün (folkrock from The Netherlands/Turkey)
I’m looking forward to next week because of: Sól án Varma & Powerwolf.
What was your favourite? Do you like the new newsletter? Should I change anything? What did I miss? Let me know!
Excellent shout on the Sermon, right up my alley!
Sermon's Birth of the Marvellous was one of the surprise gems of the last few years, really looking forward to checking out the new record.
On my substack I wrote up impressions of the latest Metallica single, and what it signals about the upcoming album. Check it out!