Catch Teeth Of The Sea’s phenomenal, foundation shaking appearance at the Liverpool Psych Fest 2014? Curious to know more? Then have a listen to Your Mercury, released back in 2010.
What do Teeth Of The Sea sound like, exactly? Ray Harryhausen meets Ridley Scott. That’s Teeth Of The Sea.
Stirring into life with ‘The Ambassador’ is the bronze steam-powered statue that Jason And The Argonauts encounter and then awaken by stealing the treasure kept beneath. Slowly creaking life back into its metallic limbs it starts its slow, inexorable amble along the beach. Drums kick in as the coppery blood begins to flow, electronics screech and wail as synapses explode. Trumpets loops echo as the attack begins. Guitar squalls as the rampages continues. In just over 6 minutes this song acts as a microcosm for everything Teeth Of The Sea stand for.
‘Cemetery Magus’ (Keats and Yeats are definitely not on their side) has brisk dance beats and building Blade Runner synths. More beats enter the fray then chiptune electronics. At 3 minutes the song is far too short. One of the dozens of reasons why they should never make a sequel to that classic movie is that Teeth Of The Sea wouldn’t be hired to soundtrack it.
‘You’re Mercury’ sounds like monks humming a score to a moody thriller soundtrack (the kind involving Liam Neeson scowling and a gun). An elegiac trumpet provides company for delicate electronics. Something fuzzy ascends then gives way to stomping, ominous drums. The trumpet rides high, like a funeral cortege of a fallen spaceman passing over a teeming metropolis. Then trumpet loops collide as the wake begins and the bass lurches through the song as if from nowhere.
‘Midas Rex’ has a sense of dread matched with some rather beautiful piano work, like a countryside vista overrun with rats. A siren wails in the distance, lines of communication have been broken, society is collapsing, but there is hope among the tattered remnants of humanity. Gurgling synths overwhelm. This story has no happy ending.
‘A.C.R.O.N.Y.M’ throbs into life, potent and dangerous. Demanding your attention by the sheer muscular power it exudes, this is a huge, vital work, like a new experimental space cruiser sat on the launch pad. Engines ticking over on horse powered bass until the dance beats kick into full gear to achieve lift off then trumpets and guitars blast the listener into orbit. Stomping, rollicking and vast the spaceship careers past planets and stars…
‘Mothlike’ returns to the creepy side of the band, being a collage of noise and sounds.
‘Red Soil’ continues with looped samples of dialogue from Paris, Texas. One of the features that marks this band out is the ability to be experimental without resulting in a pile of pretentious bollocks. From the gloom of noise emerges a hint of what is to come until a ghostly power invades, bringing metal-ish guitar and cavernous drums.
‘Horses With Hands’ is almost dub orientated with horror movie interludes and percussion to echo the falling through time we trip through every day. Quite possibly a Philip K Dick experiment into psychological time travel.
‘Hovis Coil’ ends with multiple trumpets looped to work together in a bizarre imitation of a brass band from a mining town on a moon of Jupiter. A rare jangling guitar saunters into town, like a plucky reporter from the big city reporting on life in t’ big smoke. Synths drone as the miners file into the pits. Drums stutter into life as the work commences, the ore being hewn from rock faces by replicants. Proud, austere and grim, like a Hovis commercial. Which was the first job of Ridley Scott, long before the noir future and existential doubt of Blade Runner.
Grasping with outstretched arms for a future they want now, Teeth Of The Sea are not only a very special band but a beacon of hope for originality and exploration.
See also: MASTER reviewed here https://colourhorizon.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/teeth-of-the-sea-master-2013/
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