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It’s a minor miracle that this record exists at all. Even if, for a time, twenty years ago, it felt inevitable.
Back then, Tooth was an upstart metal band of longtime friends who’d found a searing blend of sludge metal, classic heavy metal, doom and punk with a distinctive Durham terroir, and barrelled through it with an easy chemistry that can only come from close camaraderie. They quickly became local favorites and regulars on the regional touring circuit, sharing stages with now luminaries like Baroness, Kylesa, Torche, Inter Arma and Black Tusk. They cut two EPs for Churchkey Records: 2007’s Animality and a 2009 split with their Philly-based brothers-in-arms, The Claw.
But soon after releasing the split, Tooth was laid to rest. And for a good while, that was that. Life carried on, and the band members — vocalist J-me Guptill, guitarists Ben Wilson and Richard James, bassist Ryland Fishel and drummer Noah Kessler — pursued other projects while the thing that is Tooth laid buried in some sour soil out by the Eno River.
Back then, Tooth seemed like one of those bands that would live on only in memories. A formidable live act, they’d reliably thrilled those of us who’d seen them, sweating and screaming along, in any number of East Coast bars and basements. And then they were gone.
But Tooth couldn’t stay dead. The Tooth that was buried over a decade ago isn’t the same Tooth that crawled out from the grave. It’s true, what Fred Gwynne says as Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary: “Sometimes dead is better.” Just not this time.
The band is a meaner, snarling thing now. The intervening decades have only served to tighten the band’s vision and its sound — as though it spent those years of absence like whiskey in a barrel growing stronger in silent darkness. As much as this Tooth is recognizably the same — the same five members, building upon the sonic template they carved two decades ago — there’s no question this Tooth is something else, too. Nothing buried comes back the same. This time it came back better.
Fittingly, that Pet Sematary quote finds its way into the album, introducing the bruising “Phineas” — which draws a parallel between the 1989 movie and the true story of Phineas Gage, a 19th Century railroad construction foreman who survived having an iron rod driven through his skull, and whose personality never recovered. Against a backdrop of driving riffs and a ride cymbal that clangs like a hammer driving railroad spikes, Guptill recounts the story with urgent imagery: “An iron rod/ Left frontal lobe/ Remember everything... Demeanor changed/ Now profane/ He is no longer Gage.”
Even in their first run, Tooth was a tough act to pin down. They’ve been described, with various degrees of accuracy, as “prog-sludge,” “Southern punk-metal,” and even ”beard metal.” This album doesn’t make it any easier.
Where “Phineas” heaves with a straightforward heft, its immediate predecessor, “Mordrake” winds a moody, doom-ish atmosphere into a surging and anthemic vamp that finds Wilson and James dueling riffs like a muck-flecked Iron Maiden. Opening track “Howl” finds Guptill at his most optimistic, while the band shifts from charged NWOBHM leads to dour doom before the band starts swapping ascending riffs to propel Guptill’s climactic declaration: “These shouts build armies. These screams also defeat them.”
As much as Tooth intentionally bucks genre tropes, they’ve proven to be remarkably consistent. Across all six tracks, the band showcases a flair for dynamics, urgent and anthemic crescendoes, and — crucially — bringing the riffs.
But for all the thrilling shifts and surges Tooth have captured on this record, you’ve got to know the bottom of the truth. Live, they’re even better.
- Format Type: 12"
- Genre: metal