Teeth Of The Sea - Your Mercury

It starts peacefully enough, like a scene from some fantastic, long lost science fiction film. 'Transfinite' plays as our intrepid explorer floats through time and space, in search of new life forms, blissfully unaware of the danger that lies ahead. That's when second track 'The Ambassador' bursts into life and sends our dumbstruck hero rushing back to the safety of his space rocket. Teeth of the Sea's new album, Your Mercury, will take you on a trip, an epic, frequently disorientating and darkly psychedelic trip to the outer regions of your fragile little mind (all from the safety of your front room too). The sludgy bass, broken synths, twisted guitars and alien noises contained within the epic space-rock of the mighty 'The Ambassador' are just the beginning…

'Cemetery Magus' lies somewhere between the intense dance-noise of Fuck Buttons and The Chemical Brothers in a particularly dark mood before the sprawling, monolithic 'You're Mercury' drifts into view. Gradually building bass and drums merge with jazz horns and disconnected sounds to make 'You're Mercury' absolutely mesmerising. That's all before the halfway mark too, where the whole thing explodes into soaring, space-rock/trip-doom brilliance. After eight glorious minutes, 'You're Mercury' subsides into the unexpectedly calming 'Midas Rex' - a distant piano and flowing water can be heard through its steadily hypnotic drone.

Next up, the brilliant 'A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.' picks up the pace with a propulsive and addictively driving bassline, psychedelic guitars and swathes of speaker-melting noise. It's one of the most joyously exciting moments on the whole album - a euphoric tune of epic proportions. 'Mothlike' calms the mood as it shimmers through your headphones in slow motion, bits of unintelligible conversations in your ears. You may have guessed by now that there's nothing much straightforward about Your Mercury; it's a startlingly original record.

'Red Soil' starts with a sample, repeated over and over - "I knew these people, these two people" - with a meandering, almost jazz backing; it's quietly unnerving and quite brilliant. Towards the end, the bottom drops out and you're left floating momentarily before huge tribal drums and a slick guitar-riff kick in and envelope your headphones. 'Horses with Hands' is pretty spooky; like visiting the house in Tom Waits' 'What's He Building?'. Its repetitive percussion and Evil Dead-esque bursts of noise give way to closing piece 'Hovis Coil'. Looped trumpets give the track an uplifting sense of hope as Teeth of the Sea ascend into the heavens, high and happy, never to return. It's a breathtaking way to end a resoundingly impressive album.

There's not much I can think of to compare Your Mercury with; Teeth of the Sea have created a challenging, original and forward thinking album that's nigh on impossible not to get completely lost in. It's perhaps their spirit of adventure that brings to mind acts such as Drum Eyes, Fuck Buttons, SunnO))), Kraftwerk and even Butthole Surfers at their most insanely adventurous. Suffice to say, Your Mercury is an experience you don't want to miss…