Reviews

On the new release from Baltimore’s Pulling Teeth, the band start branching out and trying some different things. One thing that will be remembered is the long as hell intro to “Paranoid Delusions,” which goes on for over two minutes. When the song properly starts, it’s definitely a blood rush. Everything comes at you so fast and hard, it’s hard to wrap your mind around it. In the end, it doesn’t feel like a good introduction because it never goes anywhere, it just serves as an entrée to the main course, “Paradise Illusions.” On the aforementioned song, the band is given a chance to exorcise all of its demons and does so in supreme fashion. The band just lets loose and goes totally apeshit, while still coming out with a decent song.

The rest of the EP is just one long, drawn out disappointment after another with the one major exception being “Unsatisfied” where the band is able to bring all that they’ve learned as a hardcore band together and make one great song. The pure, unadulterated thrashing of the song is a clear standout and should be used as a reference when the band makes its next record.

The final song on the EP, the supposedly Slayer influenced “Bloodwolves” is a bit of a headscratcher. For one thing, it’s almost ten minutes long, another is that there’s really not much to it, just a haunting bass line with some light guitar thrown over it and the tiniest bit of lyrics and doesn’t even get to the point until the seven-minute mark where the whole band comes together, but even then it still leaves the listener scratching their head because they’re not able to figure out what the fuck is going on. Slayer influenced? Try a dash of Fantomas and with a sprinkle of dredg and you’ve got your influences.