Teeth - The Will of Hate

Angry Metal Guy 70

I approach new Teeth material with a mixture of anxiety and eagerness. I am not a brutal person musically.¹ Slam, grind, and extreme dissonance intrigue but do not inspire me. Stuff like Portal and Ad Nauseam go over my head. That’s fine; everyone’s got their niches, and mine isn’t that. But back in 2019 I forced myself to see a random promo pick through for The Curse of Entropy, and I became unnaturally enamored with Teeth’s bludgeoning cosmic horror. Though it did not result in a full-fledged awakening, it at least allowed me some insight into the appeal of feeling like your head is in a spin cycling dryer full of bricks and helped me expand my horizons just a bit further. Let’s see whether The Will of Hate will push them just a bit further yet.

First and foremost, if you liked The Curse of Entropy, you are as good as guaranteed to enjoy The Will of Hate. All the main ingredients remain intact. Vicious, dizzying riffs are lashed together by rapid changes in tempo and direction, ensuring more whiplash than a 40 car pile-up. Drums that not just accommodate but determine this head-spinning mixture of brutality and technicality. Most of all, the mixture of intense, high-energy composition and sparse yet significant use of dissonance has become the band’s trademark sound. It’s this balance that plants the image in my head of imminent cataclysmic destruction wrought by an unknowable deity from beyond the stars.

The Will of Hate by Teeth

The deity is a bit less ‘gibbering insanity’ and a bit more ‘massive fleshy embodiment of mutation’ though. By which I mean to say, The Will of Hate is less eldritch in its arrangements, and often resembles more easily digested forms of death metal, though not frequently for very long. Chugged triplets pop up here in there in different forms, offering brief respites with their more recognizable form. But Teeth is best when at its most oppressive, harrowing and inhuman. The decrease in overall intensity means not quite living up to the chest-caving madness of its predecessor. Additionally, it’s a little disappointing that the vocals remain stubbornly one-dimensional, perhaps even more so than before, with nary a syllable rendered in anything but the same unintelligible cavernous growl.

It’s the obvious Achilles’ heel when compared to the diverse, multifaceted songwriting, which remains fully intact and the greatest strength of Teeth. “Pray” breaks up a big nasty chug-filled riff with an inventive stumbling block that makes it all the more neck-snapping. “Shiver” is thick with atmosphere and sports a few melodic semi-solos that somehow combine dark with soaring. Opener “Blight” demonstrates the band’s aptitude for jumping between riffs for optimal head-whirling, and “Apparition” is a masterclass in breaking up straight assaults with momentary pauses for maximum contrast and effect. Few genres have more difficulty making each track stand out, but Teeth has mastered this art, culminating in the doom-laden passages of “Devour.” The production helps distinguish each track as well, as the guitars are afforded enough clarity, the heaviness arising naturally through composition rather than guitar tone alone. A more present bass would have been welcome, but the music does not lack in textural depth, and the mix is otherwise quite solid.

With the benefit of hindsight, I know now that Teeth hasn’t made and won’t make me a brutal or dissonant death metal convert. Instead, this band really just remains something special in that sphere, a band that can balance memorability, a melodic streak, frequent tempo changes, jaw-shattering aggression and a gruesome biomechanical atmosphere. The Will of Hate is perhaps a smidge less Ulcerate and a sliver more Morbid Angel, but the overall impact of the music remains significant. Despite a small step down with regards to the previous album and the Finitude EP, Teeth remains a terrifying force of eldritch death metal.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Translation Loss
Websites: teethtl.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/teethofficial
Releases Worldwide: August 30th, 2024

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