Tag: R.O.T.T. (inmyskin) (2023 Bestial Mouths album)

Bestial Mouths’ “Road of Thousand Tears” is an Orchestral Post-punk Song of Farewell to What Will Never Be Again

Bestial Mouths, photo courtesy the artist

The latest Bestial Mouths album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin) came out on August 11, 2023 via Negative Gain on digital and vinyl and, produced and mixed by Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly fame, it sounds like a new chapter for Lynette Cerezo’s songwriting. This is perhaps dramatically highlighted by the track that closes the album, “Road of Thousand Tears.” It mourns the losses of the world and of personal losses and trying to get back some of what you didn’t know you lost along the way as you make your way through the often rocky and challenging path of life. The song swims in expansive, ethereal synth melody and its processional pace is marked by electronic beats that splay in a crumbling distortion while maintaining a hypnotic cadence. In the music video Cerezo seems to be hanging out in the ruins of an old industrial town in the American West, all dry scrub and desert landscapes and the remains of buildings and railroads and of the skeletons of a once great world power. It’s like a post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel come to life and yet there’s a yearning in the mood of the song a hope for being able to reclaim what remains and make something of it whether that’s your life, your culture and/or your community, the seeds of that hope reside in the song and its slowly expansive dynamic and what initially sounds like a work of deep melancholy becomes more like the saying a goodbye to a difficult chapter of existence and working toward what must come next but not before mourning what will never be again. The song and the album has features of the darkwave and post-punk sounds of previous Bestial Mouths releases but also a way of songwriting that feels markedly different and new. Watch the video for “Road of Thousand Tears” on YouTube and follow Bestial Mouths at the links provided.

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E03: Bestial Mouths

Bestial Mouths, photo by Elemental Eyes Photography

Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.

More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since.

Listen to our interview with Lynette Cerezo of Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp and catch the group perform in Colorado on Wednesday, June 21 at Vulture’s in Colorado Springs with WitchHands and eHpH and on Thursday, June 22 at Hi-Dive in Denver with Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kell as well as other dates announced on the band’s website (linked below) where you can find more information and links to listen and purchase music and merch.

bestialmouths.com