UMUR
"Atrophy" is the debut full-length studio album by US death metal act Baring Teeth. The album was released through Willowtip Records in July 2011.
The band is a three-piece and the instrumentation is stripped down to guitar, bass and drums. There are long instrumental passages on the album but when there are vocals they are unintelligible growls placed low in the mix. Baring Teeth play a dissonant, atonal form of technical death metal. They remind me a lot of the Norwegian act Diskord. Baring Teeth also add some slower paced post metal elements to their sound which is especially audible in the 12:25 minutes long closing track "Tower of Silence". The many stylistic elements make the album quite an eclectic listen.
The musicianship are excellent and the sound production is powerful and suits the music well. While "Atrophy" is undeniably a high quality release on many parameters it´s a bit strange to note that such an adventurous and rather progressive sounding release, doesn´t come off as being more groundbreaking or innovative than the case is, but that´s just not how I perceive the album. Nonetheless "Atrophy" is still a great quality album and fans of dissonant, atonal technical death metal should check this one out. That´s fans of acts like Gorguts, Ulcerate and the above mentioned Diskord. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.