Real Teeth – Dregs | EP review

After beginning 2018 by attracting the attention of BBC Introducing and earning radio airtime in their native East Midlands, fledgling hard rock three-piece Real Teeth are now staking a claim to your summer playlist with their new EP Dregs.

Opening track Fear in Your Eyes sets the stall for a sonic assault aimed straight for the jugular from the moment that Joe Temple’s yearning vocal rides in on the back of his own chunky, overdriven guitar riff to announce, “I can tell you love me from the way in which you stare”. Underpinned by Tim Astley’s lurching, scuttling bassline and a precision backbeat supplied by Dave Martin on drums – even as its chorus flies seemingly ever-higher on an eerie harmony – the track makes for a forcefully gritty statement of intent.

Not allowing heart rates to dip for a second, Drenched maintains the same breakneck pace, the angular romp of its verses builds to an airy, swooping chorus and grandiose, nu-prog soloing of which Matt Bellamy would be proud.

Heralding the closest that Dregs comes to a gear-change, When the Night Was Young opens with Temple in contemplative mood as he picks over the bones of a night of hedonism, lamenting the futility he finds. The sentiment contrasts with the tune itself, which – thanks to the thunderously marauding bass, glitchy staccato rhythms and the return of those ghostly harmonies – has afterparty booty-shaker written all over it.

Rounding out the extended player in suitably epic fashion, So Low lays a foundation of Pink Floyd-esque harmonics over the most sombre lyric in the collection before ratcheting melodic tension sees Temple strive to break through his mental fug by way of some searingly blissed-out guitar theatrics.

Real Teeth wear their influences on their sleeve, while at the same time delivering unique sonic landscapes. Displaying more range than a three-piece has any right to yield, Dregs bristles and stomps one moment, then chimes and soars the next. This bold, assured debut is liable to leave listeners hungry to see what Real Teeth can deliver next.

Stuart Boyland

Dregs is released on 1^st June 2018. For further information or to order the album visit Real Teeth’s website here.

Real Teeth are playing Rough Trade in Nottingham on 23rd June 2018 and The Victoria in Dalston on 24th July 2018.