3TEETH - album review

The recording of 3TEETH’S second album was delayed after the LA industrialists were handpicked to support Tool on their 2016 US tour. Happily though, shutdown.exe is worth the wait. The quartet’s grinding machinery is still heavily influenced by Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Rammstein, but the combustible, twisted metal and scabrous screams on tracks like SlaveGod make the buzzsaw guitars of the band’s self-titled debut sound positively tinny by comparison. And as sinister chants on opener Divine Weapon give way to a twin attack of surging guitars and razor-sharp synths, it’s clear that this is a much heavier beast. The album is built around a thundering pulse that never lets up, hammering home a palpable sense of foreboding on the mordant Atrophy while cogs grind to a nightmarish end on highlight Degrade. Granted, frontman Alexis Mincolla does veer into Marilyn Manson vocal territory at times but nonetheless, 3TEETH are up there with Combichrist and Al Jourgensen’s Surgical Meth Machine leading the industrial resurgence.