Here to incite you to commit all the bad devilish habits your mother warned you not to is the debut album from Milwaukee trio Devils Teeth. It is an encounter which has inhibitions flying in the front of sensibility and fresh addictions forging new trespasses of ill intent. Quite simply it is a bad assed stomp sure to lead all into glorious rock ‘n’ roll wrong doings.
Out of an already in place friendship, the threesome of vocalist/guitarist Jon Hanusa, vocalist/bassist Eric Arsnow, and drummer Chuck Engel emerged in 2016 as Devils Teeth. By that October they were already sharing stages with the likes of Dick Dale, The Blind Shake, Local H, The Toxenes, and Left Lane Cruiser. Their sound is a diverse and unpredictable hybrid of punk and garage rock with surf and psych punk tendencies which song by song across their first album, Suki Yaki Hot!, shows that even those tags do not really tell the whole story of an inimitable feral proposition additionally “channeling inspiration from Brucesploitation and Herschall Gordon Lewis films as well as surf and psychedelic sounds from decades past.”
From its first breath intrigue accompanies Suki Yaki Hot!, the first sonic sigh of opener Diamond Rio a scheming lure but it is when the raw strokes of guitar kick in that ears and instinctive rock ‘n’ roll passions are ignited. The rhythmic trespass of Arsnow and Engel is as unapologetically contagious as the eager throes of Hanusa’s guitar, all colluding to bring the listener to their feet to induce uncompromising swings through their hips. A fusion of traditional garage rock, mutant rockabilly, and psych devilry, the track is undiluted contagion as magnetically raw as it is skilfully woven.
The Junction Street Eight Tigers follows, a track inspired by Bruce Lee’s gang when he was in Catholic school aged twelve years old. It enters on a rhythmic grumble awash with sonic shimmers, breaking into an infectious prowl built on attitude and temptation; threat and confidence lining its swagger as the heat of Caleb Westphal’s sax adds greater lures to the outstanding encounter.
The diversity in the band’s sound is in full expression by next up Death Is Nimble, the third song a mix of funk and psychedelic tendencies around an instinctive punk rock heartbeat. A noise rock breath springs up from time to time too as the sultry climate of the track smoulders like a mix of Rocket From The Crypt and The Bomboras; captivation held in its palms in swift time before eventually the dark climes of Dirty Tricks bound into view with predacious attitude and a hungry crawl to its lively swing. Echoing those earlier mentioned inspirations, not for the first or last time there is a great B-movie feel to the character of the song; dirty adventure veining and lining its every exploit.
The outstanding Party Shark Shake is next up, the song as the band’s actual name triggered by a book, no surprise here, about sharks by Susan Casey. You can almost feel the warm liquor soaked sand between the toes as the track stomps through ears, the swell of its melodic tides dragging the imagination and hips into the dangerous currents and depths below the biting dynamics of the song. Across the riveting attack, it builds up to rousing crescendos though at no moment is it anything less than an over powering incitement to body, spirit, and imagination. Imaging The Ghastly Ones and The Trashmen in collusion with The Damned and The Revillos and you get a whiff of the album’s greatest moment.
Every one of its ten propositions is a momentous moment within Suki Yaki Hot! to be fair though as proven by the slow slung psychotic swagger that is Understanding The Hands Of A Killer. Its swing is pure devilry accentuated by the flames of sax and the vocal rapacity of Hanusa and Eric Arsnow amidst the cries of victims while its successor, Jet Jaguar is the spark to lust fuelled movements from body and vocal chords where never being a puppet has been so much fun and exhausting.
Who’s Laughing Now? is just as deviously compelling, rhythms and guitar weaving an inescapable hook rich trap infested with the similarly and ever potent vocal incitement of the band. It was another which grabbed a loftier foot hold in the unrelenting peaks of rousing pleasures in the album’s stirring landscape continued by the grappling holds and rhythmic attack of Sakuraba, a song bred from the inspiration of the Japanese MMA fighter and wrestler.
The album is concluded by People Of Earth, calm in relation to its predecessors but a menace lined psych punk croon with mayhem in its genes and contagion in its relentless rhythmic persuasion and raw sonic toxins. It is a superb final shanghai into slavery by the Devils Teeth sound and imagination; a devious machination for salacious times and unbridled pleasure, both the rewards for letting Suki Yaki Hot! infest ears and attention.
Among some real undiluted pleasures this year, the Devils Teeth debut is there at the head of the field.
Suki Yaki Hot! is released August 24th via Triple Eye Industries; available @ https://devilsteeth.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/devilsteeth/
Pete RingMaster24/08/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
With no other hand but Hughes involved from writing and playing to recording and producing, the EP opens up with the truly irresistible Poorly Boy. The track rises up with drama and attractive tension in its tone, bringing its thick hues together to burst into an instantly rousing and infectious affair led by the potent voice of Hughes. Though under control, there is tempestuousness to the track which emerges in twists and an unpredictable enterprise that just gripped attention and a quickly forming appetite for the Hypnosister adventure. There is a touch of The Horrors to the song in certain moments too but merely one of the alluring hues in its individuality.
Next up is Walls away, a far calmer affair with a melodic temperament which captivated from its initial lure. It has a raw undercurrent though which accentuates its elegance breeding, that aforementioned unpredictability lurking at every corner while Slaínte (Salud, dinero, amor) has a Celtic lining to its infectious festivities; an Irish Gaelic inspiration which again had the body bouncing across its primarily instrumental canter sharing “good health”.
The following Before I Fall makes a similarly magnetic entrance, the bass of this time Fagernes walking magnetically through ears with the melodic intimation of the guitars for company. Like a psych washed fusion of Dead Can Dance, My Bloody Valentine, and Fields Of The Nephilim, the song fascinated and tantalised in equal measure. Its heavy emotion and senses wrapping shadows unavoidably infested the imagination but equally the song tempted the body into calm but definite involvement even as its darkness consumed. The fact that the song did not bring the same lust as for its predecessor or successor is simply down to their might, the song only magnetism.
Infestation one leads to number two in the shape of Earth Shaker (Which Doobie U Be). Instantly its muscle has bones shuddering, its sonic toxicity the imagination hooked as the listener is thrust into a whirl of melodic temptation and boisterous catchiness with a Rob Zombie-esque tinge. A robust rock ‘n’ roll waltz bound in stoner/psych dexterity, the mouth-watering escapade is soon outdone by the following Alaskan Thunder F*ck where a maze of melodic strands around rhythmic trespasses are thrust through ears with insatiable creative adrenaline. From vocals to grooves, hooks to rhythmic badgering, the song hits the spot dead centre yet is still in turn eclipsed by the outstanding Shocker. If the previous track was a hungry nagging its successor is an infernal itch with the most salacious row of hooks rich in aural bait. Neck muscles are worked out, limbs stretched from start to finish, the track so infectious and manipulative it is almost vindictive.
It is a great start to proceedings which Morally High continues with its spicily grooved stroll. Carrying similar essences and flavours to its predecessor in its own individual way, the track is equally as infectious and magnetic with again classic and modern textures rubbing excitedly again each other within its controlled yet salacious swing. As the music, Coxon has a snarl to his croon, attitude dripping from every syllable and note before My Rock And Roll steps up to coax bad behaviour with its blues skinned devilry entangled in more of the great guitar enterprise which veins the whole of Care Plan For The Soul.
Burn your halo shares a more irritable nature in its grunge lined rock ‘n’ roll next with its successor, Eyes wide open, descending into psych rock foreboding and seduction, again with an ever present edge which keeps the senses wary and ears transfixed. Both songs infuse unpredictable and tantalising twists in their already riveting bodies, the second casting a sonic incantation with a raw Jane’s Addiction like air, and each leave ears and appetite just wanting more.