Meth Teeth Remind Me of Youth

Again with the pipeline between Portland and Columbus -- the lot lizards that immigrated must have carried the virus with them, or we just mirror each other in some parallel universe, or bands just keep constantly trying to best the next best record. It’s a West Coastal-Midwestern volley I can get used to.

There’s just something refreshingly regressive about Meth Teeth, stripping everything to its skeletal core only to find there’s still a couple more layers of macerated plastic, tin cans, and fraying rope holding it all together. I’m reminded of ink-stained paper routes, carcasses of factories we’d troll around in, gravel alleyways, drainage tunnels, and forts beneath the overpass that revealed secrets every time we’d dig for junk or break some glass. The silence of the small town always forced tiny songs to creep through my lips, buoyed by primitive beats that could only be forged with sticks and stones.

There’s nothing ornamental or even particularly hip about Meth Teeth’s haunted pop, nothing propping them up but a puff of smoke and some bright tangled notes. “Unemployment Forever” and “To My Good Friend” are the hookiest barbs of the bunch, like the Black Lips infatuated with Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers – but falling further down a deep dark well filled with dusty echo. I’d also dare to say that the Meth Teeth are more grown than that unit, less prone to falling over each other and concerned with some post-punk tactics, antique instrumentation, and above all melody. This is a reminiscing little 7” that sort of breezes by in a lazily spun mix of craggy garage rock and bittersweet acoustics.

An album’s on the way (probably a better way to judge this band would be over the course of a full-length) as is a tour which rolls into the beach just in time for the mid-summer classic.