Amazing Out-Of-Town Bands: Moon Tooth
Last Friday, I braved the cold, walked from my apt in South Philly to Connie’s Ric Rac and caught Moon Tooth at SWARMS‘ “Fuckin’ Ugly” album release party! We’ll have a full show report about that show later on in the coming weeks. If you haven’t heard of Long Island, NY’s Moon Tooth, you better get acquainted with their name because when they come into town again, you’re going to want to catch their fucking live show. First off, their sound is quite indescribable, yet, what I can say about it is that it’s fast, heavy and melodic all at the same time! The way their music twists and turns will have your head on a fucking swivel because it’s entrancing in certain points as well as crushingly heavy! Secondly, if you can imagine such a thing, their stage presence was amazingly out of hand with members jumping all over their cabinets, the drummer so stoked he’d stand up at certain points, the bass player with his pretty consistent in the standard rocking position and the vocalist, well he was on another level! He did an almost spanish influenced dance to the majority of the songs, rarely stayed on the stage and did wild things like sicking their Go Pro camera down everyone in the crowd’s shirt!
Lastly, the level of talent that this band exuded was fucking IN FLAMES! As a guitar player myself, Nick, Moon Tooth’s axe slinger, made me glad I switched over to bass! I mean one listen to their riffs and it’ll make you want to lock yourself in a room and do nothing but practice until you realize you’ll always be behind compared to him. Same shit with their bass lines! What I loved about the bass player is that he held the rhythm down the entire time and did a few things that strayed from the guitar, making the licks that much more interesting, yet, allowed the song to take priority and didn’t make the songs too busy with over complicated bass lines. The drumming was probably some of the most intricate and tightest demonstration of playing technique I’ve seen at the local band level! The best way to describe it is one of those rare stylistic treatments where music so disjoined in some areas comes together in a totally amazing way! The vocals were low in the mix (or rather I was too close to the front of the stage) yet, were awesome for what I could hear, but when I pressed play on the recording they have up on their bandcamp it was, again, second to none! The vocal talent and singing ability is high up on the charts in my book and this band could have easily got some dude who would have screams the entire time and it still would have been good, but the fact that their vocalist is so good that it rounds out the level of talent makes this band my favorite out-of-town band I’ve ever reviewed!
Moon Tooth fucking KILLS! THE END! I mean their live show was amazing, their recording is killer and at the end of the show I approached these guys, letting them know what I was doing, etc, etc… and Ray their drummer walked over and handed me a CD, so to top it all off they’re awesome human beings as well! This March they’re embarking on a southern tour so check out those dates and tell your friends in those towns to get out and see them. We’ll also be on top of these guys when they come back in Philly as well! Below is their “Freaks EP” and I strongly recommend you check it out! If you only listen to one song listen to “Silver Gallows” because I haven’t heard a song this good on the local level from any out-of-town band, yet! Get Stoked!
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