TOOTHLESS CAGE ~ MARS ..... review

Portugal's Toothless Cage are asking you to take a once in a lifetime trip, a trip that will take you from the lapping blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea to the dusty red and lifeless bowl of the Del La Rue Ocean, in other words the Pombal trio are taking us to "Mars"

"The grass is always greener on the other side" is an old adage used to counteract those times when your situation looks on the bleak side and you start wondering if another location may serve you better. Portugal's Toothless Cage however have looked a little further than over the crest of the hill and have set their sights on a place with not even a vestige of grass and is in fact quite red. The band tell us, in the lyrics of the EP's opening title track, of their stress at "living in conspiracies, that makes us feel alive", and address this dilemma by telling us they are "going to Mars", the band delivering these lyrics in clear. clean vocal tones atop grooves of molten hard rock spliced with a healthy dose of warm grainy guitar fuzz that is driven by throbbing  deep bass and tight, solid percussion.. "Breathing" follows and here we find the band hitting a groove that mixes old school desert rock with that of a more proto-metal flavour, the band throwing a cheeky little snippet of Sabbath's riff for "Children of the Grave" in to the mix to keep things interesting. "River of God's" stays in proto territory but drops the metal for a more doomic dynamic while "END" goes for a more atmospheric grungy  approach and tells of  a world  with "Buffalos grazing on the street, Mirrors broken everywhere". "Oneironaut" closes out the EP with a huge sounding tome that pulls together all the different aspects of Toothless Cage's sound into one massive throbbing groove that is  made even bigger sounding by it clever use of dynamics and pace.

So if your life feels a little frantic and out of control and that grass on the other side of that hill looks just a tad like the grass your already standing on... then why not hop aboard the good ship Toothless Cage and give "Mars" a spin, the air may not be breathable, the weather might be a touch on the extreme side but maaaaaan the grooves are KICKING!
Check 'em out ……

© 2019 Frazer Jones