Down the lost highway of damning self-indictments and apocalypse paralysis, there’s a party happening. That party is the eponymous debut full-length from NYC’s premier rodeo-core quintet, Dead Tooth. This album (out July 18th via TrashCasual) fearlessly plays out like a 90s blockbuster, replete with grandiose melodrama, black humor and larger-than-life character arcs. As near atonal hooks escape from frontman Zach Ellis Taut vocal cords, they echo a world where global and personal crises collide; like that chalk-white iceberg into the belly of the RMS Titanic. With mother nature on the skids and humanity floundering in desperation, Dead Tooth sets the scene in the medium of menacing guitars, guttural vocal hooks and blistering sax lines. Having previously released two EPs and a series of standalone singles with an ever-shifting lineup, this latest album features a pell mell, irrepressible uptick in urgency one could only find in New York’s underbelly. Dead Tooth Was tracked in multiple studios across NYC’s outer boroughs in sessions stretching from 2022-2024. With eleven songs as well as a remix from Mute Record’s multi-instrumentalist songwriting aficionado Miss Grit, the album arrives as a cohesive set, thanks in part to the deft touch of mixing engineer Tom Beaujour (Nada Surf, Juliana Hatfield). Keeping effects and overdubs at a minimum, Dead Tooth exudes a rawness that brings the sweat and clamor of a packed Brooklyn basement into the privacy of your very own speakers. The result is a committed undertaking to unveil 21st century living in all of its unvarnished depravity. As the ship sinks and the passengers cartwheel to their oblivion, this band plays on
