Prompt: Attend a live show, and submit a review with a short turnaround

I’m going to–right now–claim Moon Tooth for my own. I’ve grown up on Long Island in the Brand New/Taking Back Sunday wake, and have spent years shuffling past people who claim how dead the local scene is–contending with those who contribute nothing but acrimony and expect a phoenix from the ash. Despite our sins, the gods are kind and have gifted us Moon Tooth, which, if we were to be terse, is a “prog” metal band. I’m keeping big quotations on the word “prog” here, because the band nimbly weaves through an arsenal of influences, fusing elements of sludge, math rock, blues, and thrash. It’s a bridled chaos that is only amplified during their floor-crushing live performances. Their show at Brooklyn metal den St. Vitus, where they opened for Intronaut and Entheos this past Sunday night, was no exception.

So, how does one describe Moon Tooth? The band is a firestorm, hailing holy hell onto a wickedly delighted audience. Opening with the teeth-gnashing “Queen Wolf,” singer John Carbone, who sings with a celestial deftness, is not at all what I expected to see on stage. His body juxtaposes his voice with a clomping wildness, set haphazardly to the beat that the other two standing band members soon adopt. The rest of the set continues with a similar feral barbarity punctuated by a surprisingly spry guitarist Nick Lee jumping from stage to half stack and back, and Carbone leaping into the loving embrace of a germinating pit–neither make a misstep.

As a metal band, Moon Tooth is distinctive in that they possess all the crunch and sludge of bands like Mastodon while at the same time occupying the vocal finesse of artists like Mutemath. But perhaps what’s most attractive about seeing the band live is observing the line they walk. Moon Tooth is serious: they’re throwing down seriously heavy riffs with eloquent lyricism. But despite their unquestionable sincerity, they’re incredibly fun to watch, and the band embraces a certain self awareness–a disregard of playing close to chest in an effort to gain a godlike aloofness. Moon Tooth is wholly mortal, a fact evidenced when Carbone throws his bloody beating heart into the ring in earnest with every manic dance-spasm, and Lee makes no moves to veil his delight in the visceral gut-punches coming out of his snarling guitar. Though I’d currently peg them as a group in the developing stages of navigating stage showmanship, the audience buy-in is sure to come. In the meantime, I’m just as pleased to watch the clumsy, pounding spontaneity that punctuates their non-stop set.