Just when you think you’ve heard all that rock music has to offer, along comes a band like Teiger to throw you in a hex. This London trio have been creating a buzz through their full-on live shows, and now that magic gets captured on their eponymously-titled debut album. Featuring ten other-worldly tracks that saunter between post-rock and metal, Teiger is an album that should propel the band onto greater heights.
An ethereal instrumental with which to entice us into their world, ‘The Crawl’ is a track that captures that magical moment between wake and sleep. With guitars shining like stars in a crystalline sky and drums beating a rhythmic tattoo, ‘The Crawl’ has a touch of The Velvet’s ‘Venus In Furs’ about it. It’s akin to stepping through the Wardrobe in a C.S. Lewis novel and entering another dimension, but be warned, once you’re in, there’s no turning back. However, it’s with the next cut ‘Sahara’ that the band really hit their stride, and it is here that we are introduced to Talie Rose Eigeland’s unique vocals. They are wholly unique, and like nothing you’ve ever heard before, yet their strangeness only adds to the charm and the notion that Teiger (pronounced ‘Tiger’) have been implanted on Earth by some strange alien life form.
Recorded at the famous Foel Studio and mastered by David Castillo (Opeth, Katanonia), it seems that a great deal of effort has been expended on choosing tonality, and those employed on these ten cuts resonate with us on some primordial level. Teiger is like an oak tree, and its roots dig deep into the listener’s psyche. Case in point being the organic ‘Slow Burning’, a track that grows, almost imperceptibly, insidiously ingratiating us into the band’s dark and discombobulating world.
It feels as if the album, as an art form in itself, is making a big comeback. It’s no longer just a vehicle to sell singles but a record to be enjoyed from start to finish, and Teiger fits the bill perfectly. Although it is feasible to dip in and out, this is an album best consumed whole to fully appreciate its ebb and flow, and the twists and turns the band take. Akin to holding down a lid on a pot of boiling water, you’d expect ‘Hydra’ to explode at any moment, yet Teiger take the opposite route and ‘Hydra’ implodes in a swirl of introspection. Likewise, the following ‘The Law Of Diminishing Returns’ is a soft toy tumbling down an endless flight of stairs, yet just when you think you have the band pigeonholed, they come to a shuddering stop. ‘The Thinnest Wall’ is The Doors at their most sinister (it’s more Altamont than Woodstock) and really does pull us through another portal, and as it fades into the ether it leaves more questions than answers (as all good albums should).
Debut albums rarely come as perfectly formed as Teiger, and finds this trio operating with an obvious chemistry. It’s a very more-ish listen, and will have you immediately pressing play at its conclusion…but now is the time to put a Teiger in your tank.
- Teiger is self-released on 8th September 2023.
- Official Website
Track List:
- The Crawl
- Sahara
- Come And Find Me
- Slow Burning
- Splinter
- Vendetta
- Hydra
- The Law Of Diminishing Returns
- Sunrise
- The Thinnest Wall
