This is an excerpt of an article written by Tom Girard
I first discovered 3Teeth when I saw them supporting Ministry in London on 6th July 2019, the day after the release of their third album, Metawar.
After Hyperstition, an intro that drops us very much into the present, Affluenza kicks off a maelstrom of industrial metal that paints a picture of a world on the verge of collapse and this becomes the theme of the album to such a degree that it almost becomes a concept piece.
Through singles Exxit and American Landfill and somewhat the album’s conceptual centrepiece, President X, the sounds remain similar combining elements of Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and Fear Factory to create a form of driving industrial metal that harks back to its forbears but comes on with its own twist.
Frontman Alexis Mincolla, even on record, has a distorted vocal sound that drips with sleaze even before you focus on what he’s saying while the synths, bass and guitars of Xavier Swafford, Chase Brawner and Andrew Means variously lead the charge of the driving, heavily processed, music that is as infectious as it is furious.
As the album goes on the style develops with softer elements of goth being mixed in, particularly on Altaer, along with hints of the groove of White Zombie and more, but really things never let up as the record drives us toward a kind of corporate apocalypse summed up in the lyric ‘we manufacture our own hell’ on Blackout.
The Fall feels like it brings the thematic and conceptual side to a conclusion as society collapses and is washed away to replaced by something new, a potentially positive end though it really doesn’t feel like one.
The record then concludes with a cover of Foster The People’s Pumped Up Kicks which feels like it fits a similar theme to the rest of the record but in a more immediate way, though as a standalone single it still sounds great.
It has to be said that both the musical style and theme of the album aren’t exactly anything new but, what 3Teeth have managed to do, is deliver a hit of nostalgia for those of us who remember the heady days of their generic forebears filling dance floors at rock clubs but in a way that feels both fresh and dangerous, particularly when combined with the corresponding visuals which seem as much a part of the concept as the music.
