194 dB / BRYAN REED

No. 1: We do this to ourselves...

By Bryan Reed

Beginning a thing without a determined endpoint is necessarily uncertain, but I'd argue that's a part of its excitement. This could be a failure. Or it could succeed. Or it could merely be, neither failing nor succeeding for whatever lifespan we deem to grant it.

As I embark on this uncertain and exciting experiment in offering my own excursions into the happenings of popular music's louder, less accessible poles, I find it painfully ironic that one of my favorite metal bands of the past few years - the Durham-based Tooth whose Animality EP features prominently in my memories of my senior year in Chapel Hill - is dead. Tooth is yet another casualty of the Summer-of-Death that so far has claimed a handful of celebrities and, apparently, America's ability to bite its collective tongue.

(Tooth guitarist Rich James leading his band's final show in Durham, N.C. Photo credit: Jordan Lawrence.)

That Tooth disbanded before fulfilling its potential for greatness is perhaps most indicative of the nature of beginning something with no pre-determined endpoint: it will end, eventually, and when it does it'll make an impact.

Fortunately, Tooth's dissolution arrives with a concession, bittersweet though it might be, in the form of a split LP with Philadelphia's The Claw. In a way, the record marks an end for both bands. The A-Side captures Tooth's final recordings. So when Tooth vocalist J-ME Guptill declares "We do this to ourselves," in "Suicide Myth," it's hard not to assume his lyrics are foreshadowing the band's own demise. The B-Side documents the last tapes cut by former vocalist Mikey Brosnan who died in late 2008 at the hand of a drunk driver. And when The Claw launches into its first of three songs, "Grief Is For The Living," it's hard not to let a sense of doom creep into the experience knowing that not long after recording this song, Brosnan would be dead, and his living friends and family would be grieving.

The Claw, though, soldiers on through their three songs - tense, thrashing metal with an ear for Swedish melody and Florida brutality - and into the future. Tooth, though, has made its final statement with three songs that somehow amplify both Rich James' perfect guitar leads and the band's hardcore urgency without sounding contradictory.

My friend Jason Kutchma, of the band Red Collar, wrote a summary of Tooth I really can't beat, so here it is:

"It seems these days that most metal bands have solos that go on forever, jerk-off sessions that I can't stand. In order to make themselves more interesting, they have rhythms that get head-y and too complicated but I think it often has the opposite effect: I think it makes it boring as hell. Tooth however are everything, and I mean absolutely everything, that I ever loved about metal and truthfully about music in the first place. They do everything right. They are perfect. I kept on seeing them live, listening to their two song demo to see if I really mean it when I say I believe they are perfect. If anything, it just strengthened my belief. I believe them when they play. I believe in them when they play. They are a most beautiful Frankenstein, put together with the greatest parts of metal, thrash, and punk. But they don't lumber and thud along with their arms outstretched, motivated by an Abby Normal brain wondering where Master is with their next quick fix of an electrical jolt to get them through the night. They have what Frankenstein and the many, many metaphorical Frankensteins in the music world never could have or never bother to get: heart and soul."

Tooth leaves us this three-song testament to their largely - and criminally - unheralded greatness. But I still believe in them when it plays.

ALSO IN ROTATION: Marduk - Wormwood (Regain); Lowbrow - Broken Speech EP (Self-Aware); Greymachine - Disconnected (Hydra Head); Keelhaul - Keelhaul's Triumphant Return to Obscurity (Hydra Head); Earth - Radio Earth (Southern Lord); Magrudergrind - Magrudergrind (Willowtip); Graf Orlock - Destination Time Today (Vitriol); Pryamids with Nadja - Pyramids with Nadja (Hydra Head)

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Bryan Reed is from North Carolina and, despite his best efforts, he still hasn't grown out of the racket that irritated his friends and family in high school, and continues to irritate them in the present. Stalker-types should know that they can follow Bryan on Twitter @subparrockstar.