IM: WHUSDJ
CURRENT SHOW
Making Contact
1. A Bitter Harvest
2. From Birth
3. Extinction
4. Brain Drain
5. The New Dark Age
6. Grudgeholder
7. Plastic Tombs
8. Funerary
9. At Peace
10. Whispers
11. Waiting
12. August 29
Pulling Teeth are going through an identity crisis. They can’t decide if they want to be a hardcore band or a doom metal band. Their earlier albums saw them flirting with both ideas, ripping through songs at breakneck speeds and then slowing down to bust out a face-melting guitar solo. 2009’s “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions” indicated that the band was pushing towards their sludgy doom sensibilities as it concluded on a heavy psychedelic slow burner.
While “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions” transition from fast to slow felt natural, the coexistence of fast and slow tracks on their new album “Funerary” seems somewhat forced. The album opens with a :50 primer in “A Bitter Harvest” before unleashing an all-out sound fury in “From Birth”. The next tracks keep up the pace, with only two eclipsing the 2:30 mark, until the album completely shifts with the ten-minute epic “Funerary”. After “Funerary” Pulling Teeth embrace their doom and sludge sensibilities with a slew of six-minute tracks that trudge along at a snail’s pace before finally erupting into guitar solo climaxes.
Although the shifts may be sudden, there’s no denying that whether Pulling Teeth are embracing their hardcore/thrash sensibilities or embracing their doom/sludge sensibilities, they do it extremely well. I would have like a more cohesive outing after the “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions” but “Funerary” is a solid release from one of hardcore’s most unique outfits.