Teeth Of The Sea – Your Mercury

Some contemporary bands peddling psychedelic synapse fry-ups stick a bit too respectfully close to the templates honed by their esteemed forebears. Others prefer to sniff the flowers whilst focusing on the prettier aspects of mind-expansion.

Teeth of the Sea aren’t convinced by either approach. Having sampled amp-abusing noise-rock on acclaimed 2009 debut Orphaned by the Sea, the London-based collective set sail towards uncharted waters with their second full-length. Highly skilled at unleashing squealing, feedback-crusted noise heated to the molten lava-temperatures found at the core of an active volcano, but also willing to take the occasional breather for a spot of electronic contemplation, Your Mercury grabs several familiar ingredients that shouldn’t – logically thinking – be able to coexist harmoniously, and reorganises them into a compelling, cohesive, distinctly strange whole that refuses to fit neatly into any existing category.

For example, ‘The Ambassador’ kicks off exactly as you’d expect a band renowned for monolithic psych-drones to sound: HEAVY, but not metal; there’s plenty of brawn here, but metal’s ever-predictable adolescent angst’s swapped for something thoroughly odd, otherworldly and unsettling. Just when you’re getting acclimatised to this enchantingly terrifying soundtrack to an imaginary zombie flick (the bit where the living dead rise from their tombs en masse, of course), the track orchestrates an unexpected U-turn, wounding up wide-eyed at a rainforest at sundown amidst elemental tom toms and birdsong. The near-title track ‘You’re Mercury’s unashamedly epic suite repeats the trick, building up from a subdued start of horn riffs and guitars circling each other warily to a rampaging slab of scorching sound via a hypnotic Can bassline, proving that noise, melody and hooks not only can but should be able to share the same frame. And just when its juxtaposition of overdriven guitars climbing ever upwards amidst fang-baring onslaughts (ala Boris, Comets on Fire etc) and abstract, arhythmic electronic sketches dripping with Krautrocky goodness risks becoming comfortingly familiar, the album unveils another twist, finishing with a nightmarish, deformed jumble of disembodied grunts and hollers ‘Horses with Hands’ and a majestic, horn-driven fanfare charged with more than a hint of dub’s economic atmospherics ‘Hovis Coil’.