“I’ve been burned before So can you blame me When I close the door?”
When you think about progressive rock or metal as genre, you’d imagine it to be extremely long songs often with unusual time signatures and chord progressions. Often brimming with intricate and technically demanding techniques, many bands fall into the category of “would be less boring without needless guitar wankery” (See: Meshuggah). Progressive to me is something unique, that pushes boundaries, tries to innovate or combine differing styles and genres. Moon Tooth manage to do that and more by delivering one of the strongest and more importantly, a fresh and rejuvenating album in the form of Phototroph.
Before I dive into the album, a special mention needs to be given to the gorgeous artwork. There exists a dichotomy in it as there is in the album; bright and beautiful at times to brutal and heavy at other times. “I Revere”, like a lot of the songs on the album, possesses the polar opposite attributes in the lyrics and instrumentation. The lyrics, and additionally the vocals, convey a sense of gloom while the instruments paint a soundscape that is upbeat and happier.
Rarely do I ever find riffs to be fun. But “Back Burner” and “Deathwish Blues” manage to do just that. Phototroph is essentially the band having fun. The outro of the latter song will show you just how fearless they are in trying to incorporate unexpected and bold sounds in songs. There’s a lot of variety across the album. There’s no mindless chugfests or riff wankery involved. A lot of the riffs still require a lot of technicality and every single one of them feel right on point as if they were well thought out.
Halfway through the album, the songs tend to gravitate more and more towards the dichotomy as in their beautiful artwork; often alternating between the lighter and heavier moods. The lighter tones come in the form of bridges, intros or outros across the songs “Phototroph”, “Nymphaeceae” and “Grip on the Ridge” among others. There’s plenty of versatility in play here. “The Conduit” is a sonically blaring song with sounds to annihilate your speakers and bless your eardrums. The riffs themselves draw inspiration from and combine pop-punk, grunge and a bit of funk with your average metalcore style riff. This breathes in a fresh sound that manages to grip you for the entirety of the album. There are no cut corners, no bloating, just pure enjoyable music.
It is evident that the band along with vocalist John Carbone have a unique sound of their own. And they aren’t afraid of taking it to the next level. If I were to explain the sound of Moon Tooth by comparing it to a few bands, I would say they are a mix of Spanish Love Songs and VOLA, two bands that are nothing alike. Yet Moon Tooth manage to be that one band that can draw the likeness from both while being true to themselves to craft what could easily be one of the best albums of 2022. A truly progressive band. But more importantly, one that keeps the “fun” in progressive.
9/10
Phototroph is out via Pure Noise Records on 13th May and you can pre-order it here.