Milk Teeth – Sad Sack EP
We were all young once. Some of you may still be. Stroud’s finest four-piece (no sniggering at the back please) Milk Teeth certainly are, yet their incendiary scuzz-pop is deeply nostalgic all the same. Their six-track Sad Sack EP is full to bursting with melody-heavy angst the likes of which kick-ass UK labels like Art Is Hard and Dog Knights Productions would usually be all over.
Venn Records got their first though and it makes sense when you remember it’s run by what’s left of hardcore punk-rockers Gallows. The way, for example, guitarist/screamer Josh Bannister burns up the climax in “Linda” pitches Sad Sack well outside the limitations of their occasional concessions to indie-gaze and into an arena of real attitude.
The wild chorus in “No Fun” is pure adrenaline, plonking the band straight into the pogoing pit of a proper rock night. Note-perfect debut single “Vitamins”, however, unleashes Becky Blomfield’s inner grunge goddess, adding a dose of Joy Formidable-style sweetness to the rolling waves of riffs and dynamite fuzz. Elsewhere slower tempos allow a little melancholy into the mix, droning feedback filling up the quiet-loud-quiet bars. Simply put, Milk Teeth are here to put a smile back on the mush of po-faced rock.
Best track: “No Fun”
~The Sad Sack EP is released 26th January 2015 on Venn Records.~