Like a few bands around these days, The Sawtooth Grin plays a sort of grind/hardcore/spazz/technical genre that has yet to get a real name so we just lump them into whatever fits best out of whats available. As a reviewer here, grind is not an option so I went with either hardcore or metalcore. Nothing however, would be 100% accurate. Cuddlemonster is a fury of speed and technicality with some very interesting riffs that I as a fan of the genre latch on to but most people would just view as a flurry of notes.
From the opening midi video game notes of 'Give me the Amulet You Bitch' we hear speed and then we hear the band with one of their very cool, dissonantly melodic riffs. The thing that makes this band great is their ability to write these riffs that by conventional standards are quite dissonant but are built in such a way that we hear a melody. Unlike other band of this genre, it is not lightning speed fast, but compared to most other bands and music in general it's pretty zippy. The band seems quite tight with often unusal timings and rhythms. There is the proper ammount of repetition so that you can hear the part but no get bored of it. One thing I really like about these songs and songwriting are the short, undistorted passages thrown in to break up the songs. THey may only be 1 or 2 measures long but the lack of drums and distortion add a nice effect.
In other reviews I've read, the vocalist is a complaint. I however, really like him. He has a very high pitched and overly distorted scream that suits the music really well, especially in terms of the mix. It doesn't interfere with the guitars by soaking up the midtones and is so high pitched that it clear the guitars riffs. It is also fairly low in the mix so it never overpowers and becomes more like one of the instruments rather than something the producer saw as infinitely more important than the music which, in the genre at least, it never is. Basically, I'd dig this guy in my band.
Each track is quite good and worth a listen and the shortness of the album, (7 songs in under 16 minutes) while aggravating because I like long albums, is nice for two reasons. One, this music can't work correctly on a long album because the assault would cease to be as effective at about half an hour and it allows for more listens. Unfortunately, I've hear rumors the band has broken up but all the info about them on the internet seems to have been deleted making my job as a researcher harder than I like it.
If I had to reccomend tracks, I'd say "Sometimes She Tasted Like Burnt Plastic Smells" and "Please Shit All Over Me, I Love It: are the two but at 16 minutes, I say find the whole album and listen to that.(it is quickly becoming very ahrd to find to purchase)
That sucks. They'd be great additions to any bands.
