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This is the full album stream for Baring Teeth’s Atrophy, out now on Willowtip.
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Baring Teeth – Atrophy [full album stream]
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It’s important to go outside your comfort zone. I don’t mean doing stupid things that risk your health; I mean doing smart things that risk your complacency. You have your tastes. They make you feel good. That’s fine. But when that taste is metal – well, I don’t believe in metal as comfort food. I have all kinds of other music for that. I want metal to challenge me, to jar my consciousness. Metal should be uncomfortable.
This comes to mind when I hear Atrophy. It takes a little while for my ears to adjust. Modern production! (Not so bad – clean but not overly slick) Lots of notes! (As I get older, I increasingly want fewer notes to say more.) But I give it time. I let it work. And work it does. Dissonant sheets of texture fold into the picture. Chewy, Fender-sounding tones tickle my ears. Incantation-esque cavern vocals pin everything down. How about that descending pick tapping as riffs in “Distilled in Fire” (6:33 into the stream)? “That’s noise!” you protest. “Exactly!” I say. I’m glad you’re mad. I turn it up.
These tunes would make bitchin’ modern classical compositions. Notate them, hand them to some string ensemble, and see the gleeful (or horrified) looks on their faces as they turn their instruments into implements of aural torture.
But this isn’t just circus music. The slow parts resonate the most with me – scrapings that don’t evoke metal band references so much as trying to claw out of giant pits. Unlikely payoff comes in the hall-of-mirror jangles of “Tower of Silence” (32:43 into the stream). “Dysrhythmia gone death metal” might be a shorthand description. “Dudes unafraid to piss you off” would work, too.
In an old ’90s guitar magazine, Steve Vai said:
Did you ever have broccoli rabe, this extremely bitter Italian broccoli? When you’re a kid there’s no way you would ever like it, but now I eat bowls of it. It’s stimulating!
Writing this post and listening to this album took 42 minutes of discomfort – and I loved it. It was stimulating.
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I Feel like a scorpion bear just devoured my soul. Thanks.
Comment of the week!
Great record. That broccoli comparison nails it.
That Vai quote is great, if only because it is so incongruous in content and context. Broccoli rabe, aka rapini, is one of my favorite foods.
After a typically distracted listen, I hear a more interesting, funky Ulcerate. Like a lot of reviews said for Destroyer of All, that had a great vibe, but was rather one-note. This takes a similar vibe and pushes it in a lot of different directions (the noodling, the slowing down, etc.)
So Cosmo, this is why reviews are important and worthwhile (as queried previously). Coming from a respected curator, I give this a listen over the complete inundation of alternatives barreling at me. I don’t hear a whole lot that feels far outside my comfort zone, but your personal point of reference grounds where your comments come from. Then there is a nugget that crystallizes the experience (the Vai quote), which points the listening experience in a useful way to differentiate this little piece of art from the 1000s of alternatives.
Are you unfamiliar with Gorguts or did you intentionally avoid name-dropping them? Because that’s exactly what this sounds like. If it’s the former, get Obscura asap.
Yeah I keep reading reviews of this album, and people just completely forget to mention Gorguts… I don’t get it.
This is totally the Gorguts Obscura sound, except the vocals aren’t howling enough.
The “Gorguts” parts are really blatant it leans towards straight rip off rather than homage to me (6:48 in that stream for example). Still, “Dysrhythmia gone death metal” is pretty apt to describe them, but I think it’s because they have vocals. I dunno, I think it’s more akin to Deathspell Omega than Gorguts.
This band rules.
Delightful listening experience!
I would have never picked this up based on the artwork or band name alone, props for pointing it out! Besides scraping picks, I don’t hear a whole lot of Gorguts. These songs are much more musical, not really Death Metal at all, with more variety in tempo. As others have said, it’s more of a less boring Ulcerate. Nice doomy section around 11 minutes!
Funny that you describe it as abrasive, I find it pretty easy to listen to. If you want abrasive (albeit non-metal), check out some old Whitehouse records. Erector’s a good one.
me too man, but after hearing the music it’s just awesome.
I almost got excited here thinking Atrophy had reunited and made a new album……….
yea this is totally gorguts obscura era worship. to the max not even gonna deny it. but still, im gonna catch em tonight in austin along with kill the client and madman fajardo!
An interesting listen, but not sure how out of the comfort zone this would be for readers of Invisible Oranges. The vocals are about as monotonous as it gets, however the Gorguts comparisons are valid (and a compliment!)… I am also reminded of Kalibas in some of the riffs around some of the more grindy parts they bust out into.