Baring Teeth: Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins
Angular, off-time movements with odd intoning often marks what’s considered to be unique and interesting these days in heavy music; musicality, however, is often lost in the process.
Angular, off-time movements with odd intoning often marks what’s considered to be unique and interesting these days in heavy music; musicality, however, is often lost in the process.
There are some bands, however, who’ve managed to make the pursuit purposeful, and thus, all the more impactful: Dallas, TX’s Baring Teeth is one of them.
The band’s Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins record satiates with discordant percussive patterns; chaos-infused melodies; and an intrepid, truant Ephel Duath-style groove.
The record, which was released via Willowtip Records, and proves creativity and technicality, arranged around aggressive sounds, can fuse to create a wholly authentic audio experience.
I had the chance to interview vocalist and guitarist Andrew Hawkins of Baring Teeth to learn more about the band, their song-writing processes, and what to expect on the new record.
Please tell me a brief history on Baring Teeth: When did the band start and who started the band?
[Baring Teeth] started playing together in early 2008. Before that, [bassist] Scott Addison and I had been working together on a few songs, namely “End,†“The Dead Hand,†and “Scarred Fingertips,†but they weren’t finalized until we started jamming with [drummer] Jason Roe in January 2008. Roe added so much to the band, and his playing style greatly informed and morphed our sound.
The finished versions of those songs came out quite a bit different than what we had started with, but definitely for the better. To give a condensed history of the band, we played our first show in August or September 2008, signed to Willowtip Records in 2010, and released Atrophy the following year.
It’s been said your music is “angular†and mathematical: How would you, the band, characterize your sound and what you do musically?
I’d agree with the “angular†and “mathematical†tags, but I think people put too much emphasis on those tenants of our sound. Basically, those sonic characteristics serve as a means to an end rather than the end itself. We don’t write with any descriptions or preconceptions in mind: I think the upcoming album, Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins, and Atrophy are quite a bit different, but they each still satisfied our goal of creating music that’s song-based and melodic, albeit a more off-center basis of melody.
Your music is very complex, though: it takes many twists and turns, with unexpected movements and interesting arrangements: How do you approach song-writing? Do you compartmentalize a song to write sections, or do songs form in a stream of consciousness?
Usually a songs start off with me piecing together riffs on my own and building a basic song structure off of them, or at least as much of a structure as I can. I’ll bring these ideas to [Addison] and [Roe], and they’ll start working on their bass and drum part, [respectively], give me feedback on what I’ve already written, where the song could potentially go, etc. I’ll go back and work more on my guitar lines and then come back to Addison and Roe with what I’ve developed. We just keep going like that until the song is finished.
The songs are actually really compartmentalized: We definitely strive for a song-based approach and a coherent song structure, but with the ultimate goal of making it sound like the songs aren’t structured. We want to create a disorienting atmosphere but have it grounded within a memorable song arrangement—like ordered chaos, basically. There are one or two parts of our songs that I’d categorize as “stream of consciousness,†but they’re pretty rare.
What themes or concepts does the band express in the lyrics?
[Bassist] Scott [Addison] writes pretty much all the lyrics, so I won’t try to put words in his mouth as to what he’s trying to convey through them. I will say that they’re written with the intent of being universal and open to interpretation. We’re definitely not an “issues†band, so we’re not trying to address anything political or societal. We approach the vocals in Baring Teeth as textural rather than as another instrument, so the lyrics serve that intent: they inform the final product, but they’re just a portion of the whole.
When mixing different styles and tones, some bands lose musicality: How do you maintain complexity in your music without losing grounding in the process?
I’d say it’s because we use a “less is more†approach with everything we do: All of our equipment setups are pretty minimal, we don’t overly process our recordings, and we basically just try to distill anything related to the band to the bare essentials. A lot of times when musicians think they’re adding to or improving their sound through extra layers and effects, they’re really just diluting it. And by dialing things back occasionally, we’re able to more easily create dynamics and liven up our songs; it’s impossible to do that when you’re going 1000 miles an hour through an entire album.
Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins is masterful take on extremes, where ambient, surprising movements give way to greater appreciation of technicality. You’d do well to pick up a copy of the record via Willowtip Records on November 25th.
Check out more information on Baring Teeth by visiting the band’s Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/BaringTeeth, or their official Website www.BaringTeethMetal.com.