Every now and then an album reaches out and slaps you, really hard, so hard your ears ring. Now whether or not this is a good thing can be a whole other story that we’ll get to shortly. This hasn’t happened to me for a while but Easter Teeth managed to do that with “Being Alone With Your Thoughts is for Inmates”.
Easter Teeth, from California, is the brainchild of two brothers, Josh (vocals/drums) and Tim (vocals/bass/everything else but horns) Eymann. From what I’ve found on the interwebs, the plan was to unite Soul and Hardcore and convince people that these two genres belong together. As if that alone isn’t enough of an oddity, they enlisted a horn section as well, with Scott Lillard and Mike Evans handling trumpet and trombone responsibilities, respectively.
I hardly know where to begin to describe what’s going on with this album, but I will say you need to give it a chance. Sound quality is good but has that live, gritty feel to it, which really adds to the overall impact of the album. The nearest description I can come up with and fits for some songs like “Triangle of Praise” is that if you can imagine James Brown singing for Primus with a horn section, you would be somewhat close to understanding what is going on. The Primus comparisons will be nearly impossible to avoid as the distorted bass is basically the lead instrument driving things along. Complementing that is the horn section and random other odd electronic noises like ringing phones and the like.
The songs do have a certain groove to them which is somewhat infectious, which also now reminds me of maybe some Infectious Grooves, aspects as well. Vocals are somewhat like hardcore in terms of delivery, but if you can picture James Brown singing for a hardcore band, that might paint a better picture. Lyrically, the Eymann brothers have gone the road of the abstract but there is even some obvious political commentary thrown in. The song “GPSCCTVNSAISP” is “dedicated to all you conspiracy theorists” and about all of the systems that end up almost governing our lives these days, GPS, CCTV, NSA, and ISP but even this is done through their unique lyrical vision:
“Go ahead. Reddi Wip the camera lens. You cannot escape. Go ahead. Crush that chip. Get off the grid. You cannot escape. Misimplementation of your paranoia, Dad has better eyesight than Big Brother does.”
On the bandcamp site for the album, you will notice each song on the album has two versions available, one with horns and one without horns, so you can experiment with the particular listening experience you ‘re looking to have. Easter Teeth is certainly not a band for everyone, but is a band everyone should check out as it is different enough that there’s a pretty good chance you will find something cool even if you’re not quite sure why…
Rating: 6.5/10
Written by John Jackson
Tracklist:
1. Being alone With Your Thoughts Is For Inmates 04:27
2. J Robbins Was Half Right 02:55
3. Triangle Of Praise 02:41
4. GPSCCTVNSAISP 03:28
5. Coq de Grammaire 02:53
6. Break Out The Knives 02:58
7. Where Have All The Demons Gone? 02:12
8. Sleeping With The Lions 03:07
9. The Eagle Flies On Friday 03:08
10. Being Alone With Your Thoughts Is For Inmates (No Horns) 04:27
11. J Robbins Was Half Right (No Horns) 02:55
12. Triangle Of Praise (No Horns) 02:41
13. GPSCCTVNSAISP (No Horns) 03:28
14. Coq de Grammaire (No Horns) 02:53
15. Break Out The Knives (No Horns) 02:58
16. Where Have All The Demons Gone (No Horns) 02:12
17. Sleeping With The Lions (No Horns) 03:07
18. The Eagle Flies On Friday (No Horns) 03:08
Band Members:
Joshua Eymann: Vocals, drums
Timothy Eymann: Vocals, bass, keyboards
Scott Lillard: Trumpet
Mike Evans: Trombone
Record Label: Veritas Vinyl, Dec. 2013