Formed in 2006, Baltimore natives Pianos Become The Teeth have had a productive last few years. Starting with a simple demo release in 07, the five-piece embarked on a Northeastern tour before recording and releasing their Saltwater EP through Doomed By Dawn Recordings in 2008, which was followed by a split alongside Ezra Joyce. A number of tours came after, as did topping a few Best of 2009 lists before signing with Topshelf Records, through whom the band just re-released their full-length Old Pride. The Maryland musicians now plan on hitting the road once again, with an extensive tour planned for the summer.
Pianos Become The Teeth deliver a heavy sounding combination of Ambient/Post- rock and Emotive Hardcore, with aching, raw vocals and a melodic quality beneath the grinding of their instrumentals. Old Pride is no exception to that signature sound, and offer eight truly representative tracks of the screamo/post rock revival these five musicians are making. Old Pride starts with light Explosions in the Sky-esque guitar and rolling percussion; subtly subduing it’s listeners with a doppelganger of calm cymbals before the vocals from our front man punch through in a style reminiscent of At The Drive-in and Have Heart. Constructing a glimmeringly spacey guitar track and hiding it under the grinding overlay of another shows the exploration of deeper instrumentation the band has taken upon them-selves, straying from the typical template of screamo music- a move they come back to again and again, in the same vein as City of Caterpillar and Circle Takes the Square.
Tracks “Quiet Benefit” and “Sleepshaker” bare a blatant similarity to one another compositionally, and had the two not been placed back to back we would be forced to call it lazy writing. But instead the former gracefully fades, the music bleeding out in an eerie not-quite silence before bursting forward again in the form of “Sleepshaker”, offering a combination we can get behind. Both songs offer a sense of malcontent behind well meaning intentions, with lyrics like “You can’t see but you’re the best at hearing the friends we could be/ Insipid but still charming the hair off of our tongues/singing of dying early/just to be loved” (Quiet Benefit) and “I have questions hogging my bed/ I’m heeding the easy sleeper/the joy bringer in you, the unclouded highlights of life, my muscle memory/I’ll hold the hair from the bones that hold your collar when everything burns/ I’ll be your patience, I’ll put in time” (Sleepshaker).
“Pensive” slows down, playing out more vocally dominant, but, as the band seems to enjoy doing, leads the listener into a false sense of security before erupting from a series of drum rolls into something heavier. “Cripples Can’t Shiver” pulls the move again, though much more complexly than its other implementations. The track starts with a one by one addition of rhythmic sounds, from the bare snap of a snare, to more throaty percussion, leading into a slow crescendo of instruments and vocals.
Lyrically this songs stands out against the other tracks, making blatant observations on the decline of a family members health, sparing its listener any false hope or reference to the lessons that can be learned from witnessing another’s long drawn decline. Lines like “The family knees have gotten weak/ The family skin has gotten languid/ If you put your gums in, and I let mine recede, if you keep your pride I’ll be your eyes/ I’ll save my temper, save my rage for the hot on your hands because cripples cant shiver” paint a portrait of anguish without wishful thinking, without acceptance, saying “I swear I’d at least break the fingers of the hand that dealt this to you”
Last but certainly not least on this album we have “Young Fire”, in which the band let’s down its hair, falling entirely into an instrumental expression of distended, echoey guitar, wah-ing bass, with a sound that wouldn’t be out of place on a more recent Brand New album. After the manic intro of previous track “Jess and Charlie”, now replacing it’s crashing cymbals with ones of more whispering qualities, “Young Fire” feels like a song to recover from Old Pride with, the calm after the storm, and a clean, albeit simplistic, expression of what post-rock ambience is all about. After the more raucous tracks that precede it, we welcome the break- however some listeners may be left feeling a little short changed by such a tepid track ending the album.
Pianos Become The Teeth Online:
Myspace
Topshelf Records
