Teeth of the Sea / Master

The new album by Teeth of the Sea is a record unlike any other experienced this year. It is bold and extravagant, but mostly it is a confident band that knows exactly what it wants to say through its own dark and corrupted world. It is dense and spooky, muscular and ultimately rather challenging. It’s no stretch of the imagination to picture this music being used as the soundtrack to the darkest, creepiest moments in a horror movie or a dramatic and tense thriller. There is a sense of claustrophobia that increasingly takes hold of the listener over the course of the album.

The music here is beyond categorisation, which with new genres being constantly created is, in itself, some feat. That the otherworldly music created by this London four-piece is also of such a high standard sets it apart from many others who could only hope to successfully transform new ideas into such well executed tracks.

If you are going to go 12 rounds in the ring with one album this year then make it this one, you won’t regret it. It surely isn’t easy going, but it has a definite sense of reward if you allow it to get under the skin.

The brass set off against an electronic and heavy background uneasily forcing its way into the foreground on ‘Siren Spectre’ as it all builds up is a thing of strange beauty. The distortion erupts; a fragile calmness seeps back into the track, and gives way to the next one.

The sound that is ‘All Human Is Error’ would seem to be a colossal statement, both as an indication of the band’s abilities and as a sonic portrayal of the fallibility that we all possess. The final piece of music here is epic. The listener's patience is rewarded and it is the peak of the crescendo, before leaving the listener wondering what has just happened.

It’s an almost barbaric record, in so many stunning and thought provoking ways. Without a shadow of a doubt, everybody should at least hear this album.