Baring Teeth Want You to Ascend the Mountain of Enlightenment
You guys, I’m super duper excited for November. Why, you ask? No, it’s not because of Thanksgiving or pumpkin spice lattes or whatever else you regular lifelovers dig about Fall. I’m excited because orthogonality-defying death metal maestros Baring Teeth are returning to the front with the next brain-blending lesson in skronky music for aliens and beings that exist on a higher plane.
Wait wait wait? You’ve never heard of Baring Teeth? Well fret not, stranger, because up until recently, I hadn’t either. These Dallas deviants (previously known as Soviet) seem to have flown under the radar for quite a few of us, and that’s an absolute shame because they’re good. Very good. Their 2011 debut, Atrophy, was a jarring, angular tour de force that masterfully predated many of the other bands of this style by quite some time. It seems that Baring Teeth were ahead of the extra-dimensional game, but the sonic residue of their emergence into our unworthy plane of existence has left a rather singular fist print on the subconscious minds of receptive souls. This band definitely forms a link in the evolutionary chain of bizarro death metal somewhere between Gorguts and Pyrrhon, and they definitely deserve to be whispered of in the same hushed tones of exaltation.
Ever since I first discovered Atrophy, I’ve been listening to it on repeat. Rare is the album that captivates me so intensely and compels me to slavishly pore over every multifaceted element. Every listen to this monster of an album is like adding a slightly greater load to your elastic perception of reality; the structures of your consciousness stress and bend ever so slightly with each repeat, but for all its brutality and dissonance, Atrophy is never fatiguing. The unpredictable, jarring snaps in rhythm, angular, bouncy riffs, and serpentine drum patterns coil and seethe in a wholly entrancing way, elevating your soul closer and closer to transcendentalism while utterly eschewing tedium. My one regret for 2011 was that I missed this album when it dropped. Perhaps I would have chosen to reject this mortal coil and taken up the life of a shaman waiting patiently upon the mountain of enlightenment had I listened to “Vestigal Birth” and “Scarred Fingertips” earlier.
So, if you’re just now discovering Baring Teeth, rejoice, for the second revelation is upon us. Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins will descend from the heavenly realms into our lowly ears on November 25th courtesy of Willowtip. Our skronk gurus have even deigned to bless us with an advanced track from the new album, and let me tell you, it is going to bore into your pineal gland and pry open your third eye, like it or not. Listen to Mountain and join me in rapture upon the slopes of skronk come November 25th. You can pre-order the album here and check out their bandcamp here.
(Phot VIA)
