Thousands of gallons of translucent slurry drain through the petri-assembly, all cultured ears twitching with new growth. — A score of pandemia writ codas depicting scenes of nihil, dysfunction and spectacularly dark landscapes befit the crookedly scrawled and fifteen plus year developed vernacular Dallas, Texas based trio Baring Teeth present in downward-cast spiral as they continue to surprise and horrify on this fourth full-length album. A rare species of technical death metal considered ahead of their time a decade ago, the unflinching hand of these folks continues to mold their own brand of atonal discordance set within dissonant-phrased surrealism on ‘The Path Narrows‘. Heated environs, frenzied movement, richer kinetic interactions, and increasingly despairing tonal reach retain the anxietous throes they are known for but this fourth passage hums with the radiance of unbearable pressurization, a headspace where spontaneous combustion and frantic disembodiment threaten at every turn.

Baring Teeth technically formed circa 2007 under their original name, Soviet, producing one two-song CD-r demo before changing their name soon after. The original line-up of drummer Jason Rowe, vocalist/bassist Scott Edison, and vocalist/guitarist Andrew Hawkins persists today with at least two of them coming off a few years in an early 2000’s mathcore/grind group, Man Is Mostly Water, where their use of abstract chords and frantic patternation provides no substantial relation to the ‘Obscura‘ inspired creep of their debut LP (‘Atrophy‘, 2011). Secreted in smaller chunks and usually keeping it around 3-4 minutes we could draw some loose parallels with the construction/running order of the first album and the space occupied by this fourth; The significance of that first album shouldn’t be glossed-over in hindsight as Baring Teeth were seen as a surprising outlier in a pre-‘Colored Sands‘ realm of technical death metal, a band which’d brought surrealistic atmosphere (and unique visual interest) to the tech-death dominant roster of Willowtip Records at the time (Ulcerate, Gigan, Illogicist, etc.) with a bit of the skronk/avant-garde edge found in outliers like Flourishing and Pyrrhon. I figure if you were deep into it as I was back in the early 2010’s you probably recall at least the first two LPs from these folks.

My introduction to Baring Teeth came with ‘Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins‘ in 2014 wherein the second full-length album from the band came with more chaos and confrontation. Guitar runs became busied and verbose, complex in their darting-and-scrambling twitched-out movements whereas the spaced-out nausea of their slower atmospheric pieces intensified creating an experience even more taxing, note-filled, and anxietous than the first. This was a bit much for me at the time and I’d soon found their debut was more my speed. Per the time it felt like a lot of bands were pushing more skronk-core, noise rock and oblique edged movements into their sound and these folks were one of the more tasteful integrations per my own taste. Their follow-up LP (‘Transitive Savagery‘, 2018) was an additive honing of the virtues of its predecessor, relenting with some of the repetition, combining the atmospheric dredging highs with the always technically sharp edge of their work for some of the biggest pieces from the group (see: “Aqueous”).

You’ll note that I’ve not mentioned mathcore or grindcore in returning to Baring Teeth‘s discography as I’ve never felt these were such serious considerations for this band’s sound to the point that they’d warranted a secondary sub-genre tag or deeper conversation beyond their prior association with those spaces. At most one could argue that the vocals on the third album were a bit more hardcorish at times but as we move on to ‘The Path Narrows‘ they are often more in line with straightforward death metal in that they are growled rather than barked; Getting to know the general language and the journey Baring Teeth have taken on over the last fifteen plus years is vital to seeing not only the progression over time available to the walk up to ‘The Path Narrows‘ but it also creates a high expectation, a highest standard of sound design and frenetic and intelligent rhythmic detail which the album effortlessly delivers.

The product of four years of writ and revision ‘The Path Narrows‘ is a Colin Marston engineered, mixed and mastered production and is thusly ensured prime environmental space, richly realized definition of each instrument, and a sense of immediate yet imposing presence which does not alienate itself from the render of past releases too heartily. There is an achingly centered placement of the guitar tone, a radiant force which is grounded by the grimed-up and sweetly percussive edge of the bass guitar tone set with its growl beneath-yet-beside the guitar tone’s sorcery and emergent layers. Each piece uses this sense of space well but there are a few pieces (“Rote Mimesis”, “Cadaver Synod”) which live embedded within it, songs which explore the car-alarm wailing sort of ear-catching quality of their refined artillery. Opener “Obsolescence” gives us the strobing seizure of this headspace up front, stretching time and warping through unthinkable runs which appear locked in cyclic movements which would be considered motoric if not for the frequent tumbles into moshable death metal chug-and-roaring verses throughout. While this opener is fluid, a liquid sulphur slicked point of abrasion “Culled” follows up with more of a hammer pulse, a showcase of how this sense of dissonance and irregular phrasing doesn’t have to interrupt the aggression of the piece or break the connection loose in order to introduce quick changes or interruptive phrases. The rhythm section is particularly set afire here for my taste, trashing forth and embellishing to no end but avoiding any real hindrance from the implied motion of events, this already trounces some of the bigger innovations found on ‘Transitive Savagery‘ in some respects, lending a heightened state of anxious and urgent movement as we stride towards a few of my favorite pieces on the album.

“Rote Mimesis” is a good example of the classic Baring Teeth experience amplified, eruptive and overwhelming in its atmosphere but initially lead by the driven wrangling of the main opening run of the guitars, a run-on rant which provides the surreal sense of movement their best work always brings. This is the peak of the over-active and edged up Side A and we find a more calm entrance into the second half of the album. This transition from peak swerve into the restless ambiance of “Liminal Rite” constitute my favorite portion of the full listen and a moment that’d consistently caught my ear on each spin. We’ve gotten these sorts of subterranean writhe-fests from the group in the past but our saunter across the coastal region of Baring Teeth‘s sound in the second half of ‘The Path Narrows‘ is for my own taste some of their best work. The aforementioned “Cadaver Synod” is the rightful apex of the full listen, in some ways a straightforward piece which begins to introduce its own ripples along the way with a doomed feeling lingering in the final third of the song, a showcase for how the slower, atmospheric dirges are of equal interest to their most manic rhythms. The double-length piece “Terminus” which ends the album doubles down on this thought before resting back into the loop of the full listen, continuing along the lines of “Cadaver Synod” and the mood it’d generated.

The gist of the appeal of sitting with the full listen of this album for extended hours lies in engaging technical pieces which build immersion through repetition, unexpected modulation and areas of rest which craft atmosphere first and contrast second. Baring Teeth‘s work has never been impenetrable but at least challenging enough to engage an overactive processor with surprising modulation, in this case there is enough of a dynamic stretch accomplished within the ~41 minutes of ‘The Path Narrows‘ that the experience remains repeatable for its many points of interest and unique craft of riff and rhythm. To be fair their discography has never faltered in generating this exact balance of extremes, improving in the maze-like abandon of their drift within each record, but instead the main boon felt here on album number four comes in the technical details of composition, exploring different techniques and the render of the album which has reached a new high point of readable yet stylized grit which suits the band well. As a longtime fan this record felt like a natural upgrade per their usual four year cycle, an experience which reinforces the style of death metal they’ve been creating at an above-average standard for ages now, although the nature of that style doesn’t aim for truly memorable (or “catchy”) pieces the indoctrinated and/or well studied folk of the niche will find it high value in every case. A high recommendation.

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