Bestial Mouths - Bestial Mouths

Bestial Mouths are creating something of a stir with their wild concoction of female chants, filmic synth work and powerful percussive rhythms. The LA based quartet, featuring vocalist Lynette Cerezo, keyboardists Gustavo Aldana and Christopher Myrick, and drummer Jessica Reuter, are certainly onto something. The synths are cinematic, the percussion a barrage of ferocious roar, combining physical beats with programmed electronic rhythms which gives Bestial Mouths a contemporary primal edge. You can hear it in the opening of 'Reunion' as it bursts from a barrage of chaotic industrial electronics into pounding drums and keening electronic rhythms, the ecstatic voice losing itself in the wild synth driven chords and ferocious drumming. There's a primal urgency to the sound of Bestial Mouths, it's like contemporary ritual music, laced with harsh elements of industrial and noise and atmospheric beaty synth patterns.

Bestial Mouths can also boast of the presence of Lynette Cerezo. Her distinctive tones; a commanding feral like soar, with gothic touches possess an aggressive edge that seems to carry something of an early post-punk spirit.

The opening track 'Ceased' appears to delve deep into feminine mysteries with Lynette Cerezo's gothic tinged incantatory vocals, set against pounding electro beats mixed with cold synths and frantic ritual drumming. It floats through passages of electro synth work but with its ritualesque singing the entire thing sounds like a wild hunt rampaging through some of Patrick Leagas' and Amodali's work as Sixth Comm and Mother Destruction. It's not the only track which veers close to the work of Patrick Leagas. The treated trumpet score of 'Movement' recalls early Death In June. And by this I mean the first incarnation the made tracks like 'State Laughter' and 'We Drive East', and not the later acoustic version that Douglas P. has followed. That it is incorporated into a track laced with eighties electro synth patterns and pounding drums is truly something.

On other tracks such as 'Faceless' and 'Cloaked' Bestial Mouths let the electronic rhythms take precedence. Electro sequences feature on both tracks but 'Faceless' is by far the most abrasive, with its opening noise moments and passages of harsh cyclical rhythmic whipping with Cerezo's fired up voice reduced to short lyrical bursts. 'Cloaked' on the other hand features much lighter synth tones with the electronic rhythms only disappearing to allow Cerezo to supply some breathy accompaniment to the passages of hand played drums.

Building up from deep fuzzed up bass tones, 'In Empathy' positively stirs with its ritualised electronic rhythms and hand drums, underpinned by a wall of harsh noise, as Cerezo's delivers the scant lyrics in almost chant like fashion. Imagine a female fronted NON and you're almost there. While most of Bestial Mouths swells with a life-affirming energy, 'Vatic Vision' is much more experimental in construction built as it is from thick slabs of heavy chords and airy horror film electronic sequences. Less muscular, the rhythms here are reduced to a mesh of percussive clatter and sporadic pounding beats. The electronics are pushed into eastern realms on 'Earth' with Cerezo's curt wailings embodying a pagan spirit. At times light electro keys shadow Cerezo's voice, just as the sitar-like electronics stutter and the whole thing swells into a hazy climax of chants, noise and drums. The final piece, 'A Death Rattle', is mired in animalistic descriptions; the vocal incantations delivered against thumping electronics and rolling drums.

It's really not surprising that some of Bestial Mouths early recordings appeared on Dais Records, the American based label that has issued the early recordings of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, along with other recordings from the nascent US industrial scene as well as contemporary releases from Cold Cave, Cult of Youth and Prurient. Bestial Mouths have been caught up in the groundswell of current electro-industrialists but, unlike the cold electronics of their compatriots, the sound of Bestial Mouths burns with an aggressive primal fury that you can't fail to respond to. Produced by David Psutka from Egyptrixx and Hiawatha, this eponymous album on Glasgow's Clan Destine Records, can't fail to push Bestial Mouths towards greater things. For more information go to clandestinerecords.bigcartel.com/