🌶️ To The Teeth: the triumphant comeback of Charlotte Wessels

Plus: Nightwish, Mork, Unto Others, Kanonenfieber, Deathless Void, Invocation, Immortal Bird, Funeral, Imperial Triumphant & much more!

Sep 20, 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 🌶️!

New Albums

🌶️ Charlotte Wessels

Symphonic/alternative, The Netherlands (Napalm Records)

FFO: Simone Simons, Epica, Lacuna Coil

First of all: I think Charlotte is fucking badass. I’ve met her a few times (The Taste of Teeth alumnus!) and she’s not only very funny and kind, it’s also amazing how she turned her career around: from leaving the sinking Delain-ship and suddenly sitting at home during the pandemic, to finding a way to actually make a living there with just a computer and ace songwriting chops. More than 2.000 Patreon-members, that’s crazy and - for the people in the back - fucking badass.
That’s point two I want to make: the songs on this thing are really good. I mean, I didn’t really need fresh ideas in my symphonic-alternative hybrid - I’ve liked the genre stale and repetitive just fine for the past 20 years. But if you insist, Mrs. Wessels, yes, I’ll take trip-hop, pop hooks, gospel (!?), deeply emotional lyrics and progressive breakdowns with it. Wessels loves a great symphometal song, but is too ambitious to stay on the path. We’ve heard that on her two previous compilation albums, but not as honed in and well executed (with a full band) as on the ultimate comeback from a nasty band split. The Obsession is a triumphant album.

🌶️ Nightwish

Symphonic/power, Finland (Nuclear Blast)

FFO: Epica, Within Temptation, Tristania

See, when I said stale and repetitive symphonic metal, I didn’t necessarily mean Nightwish. Of course, you can’t say they’ve been busy reinventing the wheel the last few decades (although Human Nature had a surprising sound), but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Yesterwynde sounds like good ole’ Nightwish and that’s not bad, it really isn’t. It’s bombastic, cinematic, compelling, theatrical and uplifting in a way only Tuomas Holopainen’s band can, and I’m enjoying this for what it is.

🌶️ Mork

Black, Norway (Peaceville Records)

FFO: Darkthrone, Taake, Gorgoroth

Do you really have to know more than you already know from reading the genre, the location and the references? This is riffy, ice cold black metal of the really good kind.

There’s more: Deathless Void (🌶️ death/black, The Netherlands), Invocation (🌶️ black/death, Chile), Aevangelist (experimental black/death, Finland), Unto Others (heavy/gothic, USA), Kanonenfieber (melodic death/black, Germany), Coffin Rot (death, USA), Defiled (death, Japan), Dreamless Veil (black, USA - w/ members of Artificial Brain, Inter Arma), Esoctrilihum (black, Frnace), Glacial Tomb (sludge/death/black, USA) and Odious Spirit (experimental death/thrash, USA). The rest is in the playlist!