ALBUM REVIEW: PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH”S ‘THE LACK LONG AFTER’
Pianos Become the Teeth started in late 2006 in Baltimore, MD. In 2008, released via Doomed by Dawn Records, was their first release titled the Saltwater Ep. When their debut album, Old Pride, came in 2009 through Blackjaw Records it didn’t do well as they thought it would. Subsequently, they signed to Topshelf Records in October 2009, and reissued Old Pride in January of 2010, making this version of Old Pride see a much wider release that was met with much acknowledgment. With one EP (Saltwater), two split EP’s (2009 split EP with Ezra Joyce) and (October 2010’s split EP with The Saddest Landscape), their debut album (Old Pride in 2009), out now via Topshelf Records here is their second full length album ‘The Lack Long After’. The album was recorded by Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Studios, where the band’s previous effort Old Pride was recorded.
The Lack Long After focuses heavily on vocalist Kyle Durfey loss of his father and all of the feelings and mental disaster of losing someone that is very close to you. Reading along to every word on the record can be at times unbearable if you've ever lost someone so close to you.
Starting out the album with some witty/honest lyrics, ferocious drums and messy guitars is I'll Be Damned. “Is it better than Clapton? Did you see your fathers eyes? I know it’s wishful thinking hoping this won’t always kill me.”
Reminiscing about the past is always bittersweet, and the song Good Times is filled with heavy driving guitars and passionate emotionally charged vocals from Durfey, “I miss those summers, that grill smell, home cooked meals, take me back.”
Although Shared Bodies has heavy, over-powering guitars and very frantic vocals, it also has very emotional lyrics of poetic strength, “you were everything I wanted at night, you were a dream, but come light, I lost what I saw in you.”
Such Confidence is a powerful brittle song, but still holds all the emotional lyrics that Durfey is so well at vocalizing. “Just sit down, and let it be, if only today, if only for me./I take it hard, I take it to heart, and it tears me apart.”
One of most painful songs to swallow is Liquid Courage the lyrics say it all, “and on Memorial Day, I started drinking because it got kind of hard just sitting there thinking.”
“Life goes on because it has to, these things, they never leave.” Spine is talking about how no matter how close the person who has passed away was to you and no matter how upsetting and heartbreaking it is, you still have to go on with life. Such honest/ heartbreaking lyrics, “The first Christmas we suffered through,” if you have ever lost somebody you know that the first holidays you go through without them is always the hardest and almost unbearable.
With familiar aggressive vocals, Sunsetting is about the regret you have after someone dies, all of the woulda, coulda, shoulda, moments. “I should have called more, come up more, spent more time just sitting with you.”
I'll Get By is a bit mellower than the rest, as Durfey sounds weak, vulnerable even, and the guitars utilize a much less heavy tone. “but I couldn't save you, I couldn't save what was taken away,” and “I want you to know, I'm learning patience against my will, I want you to know, I'll get by, always barely scraping.”
Pianos Become The Teeth definitely don’t lack passion, they have a ferocious and captivating brand of music. The Lack Long After is an album that’s all about the honest, sometimes overbearingly honest, lyrics, and if you can get past Durfey’s harsh voice and listen to what their actually saying you will become physically and emotionally attached to it.
Best Tracks: I’ll Get By, Liquid Courage, Good Times.
Rating: 7/10