Teeph - Self Titled

Teeph are ready to party like it's... 1999?

Is it too soon to be nostalgic for the halcyon days of metallic hardcore, for those few bright years when Botch, Coalesce, Bloodlet, Converge et. al. offered a slightly fresher alternative to an almost completely stagnated metal scene? Thrashing 'til the death had been accomplished, death metal was subsumed by its own mundanity, doom had left behind its forests of equilibrium for midnight mountains and black metal was all dressed up with nowhere to go but arena shows and OzzFest second stages. Enter the aforementioned short hairs weilding guitars like axes, with cliche slates wiped clean and a burgeoning ironic sensibility that was part SOD, part MOD, part Cinema Verite. Brandishing hardcore's righteous anger and metal's righteous chops, for the briefest of moments this new scene and new sound was "It."

It's ten years later and Teeph is staging a metallic hardcore revival of sorts. That is not to say this debut album is beating a long-dead horse; rather it's closer to whipping a still moving but nearly dead horse a few yards further. I hear echoes of so many great bands and great albums that this album is nothing if not a great nostalgia engine. "Male Pattern Bullshit," and "Jailbait Blues" combine a bit of Converge with a bit of Botch for some mildly abrasive, mildly technical thrills ("So Sic, Bro" at its most derivative might be an uncredited We Are the Romans throw-away). Teeph freshens the sound a bit with heavy doses of Isis circa The Mosquito Control EP and Neurosis circa Times of Grace. The better tracks are those like "Hipster Killers," "Part III," and especially "A Shitapple Driving a Shitmobile" that blend Teeph's slower, heavier guise with slight technical flourishes. This isn't the trainwreck technical sludge of Mastodon's Remission, but the general vibe is close and the result is very listenable.

What surprises me though is that while this album is wholly derivative of a scene to which I haven't paid attention in years, I really enjoy this CD. It's solidly produced, well-played and has real songs that hold up to multiple listens, a rarity in today's ultra-generic metallic hardcore/metalcore. Couple that with an odd un-reliance on breakdowns (I might be one of the few, but if I go the next year without hearing a single breakdown, I think I'll be just fine.) and Teeph is doing more than a few things right. Not a great album, but those hankering '99-style party could do much, much worse.

June 18, 2010

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