Bestial Mouths - R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)

There’s a certain expectation I have when it comes to Bestial Mouths: that I’ll come into this album looking for Lynette’s witchy vocals and the heavy tribal beats that accompany them. These core elements have provided countless hours of entertainment with Bestial Mouths for me. Discovering the project with “Heartless” I fell in love, and that emotion only continued to evolve with further releases such as “INSHROUDSS” and “RESURRECTEDINBLACK” which saw Lynette become a solo producer. Expanding her horizon throughout the years came remix albums, introducing her to new audiences and allowing Bestial Mouths to collaborate with infamous names throughout the scene. All this has come to culminate in her brand-new album “R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)”.

‘THE KNIFE’ is a bold start; rather than the classic gothic-industrial that I’ve come to expect from Bestial Mouths, we get a rather remix-sounding intro to the song that’s much more electro in nature than expected. But, much like Bestial Mouths’ career, it’s a song that evolves. I want to say that a big transition point for ‘THE KNIFE’ comes around the two-minute mark, when electronic shards dribble in the in-between and roll over into an atmospheric, synth heavy blitz. 

The next song that hits is ‘VAST MURMUR’, one of the lead singles that’s currently teasing the forthcoming release of the album on August 11th. And what a showcase it is. The percussive drums take center stage, vastly overpowering the ambient base beneath all while Cerezo howls. Dramatic synths take pause in the song, giving it the slightest nudge of witch house influence. A crusty, industrial breakdown delightfully makes its mark around the three-minute and twelve-second mark, leading to the final climax of the track. 

Dirty synths lead right into ‘Never Did I’. Rather than singing in the intro, Cerezo comes forth with passionate spoken word vocals. It’s a statement more than lyrics proclaiming exactly what’s happening. Her vocal style varies throughout the track, dabbling in hip-hop inspired delivery to further spoken word. The beat is perfect for this style, giving way to noisy, lo-fi basslines and other industrial inspired lines. 

There’s a gradual, ambient build-up in ‘MIND TEARS’ that’s gorgeous. It avoids the dark ambient scene’s problem of generating a two-minute nothingness and instead gently builds into a beat. Psychedelic in a sense, with ambient whispering and far-off wailing, as if you got lost in some deep swamp and you’re slowly losing your sanity. Cerezo decorates the song with some of her classic chords, delivering a hexing tone that we’ve all come to know and love.

‘SLITSKIN’ gets right into the nitty-gritty giving us a good percussive beat, noisy electronic lines from the get-go. However, the song cracks wide open a little after the one-minute and eight-second mark. Cerezo howls, delivering what might be my favorite performance on the album thus far. Heavy-hitting, dark, and phenomenal. 

Channeling a bit of darkwave comes in ‘Hex (THE SPELL)’. This little number plays with a more melancholic beat and the mix plays with where Cerezo’s voice comes from. Around the middle of the song, she delivers two lines back-to-back, with one coming from my left speaker and the next from my right. A neat little touch that had me looking over my shoulder for the briefest of seconds to see if it was just my imagination. Bright synths rejuvenate the song around the two-minute and forty-five second mark and turns the song from desperation to hopefulness.

‘Only DEAD FISH’ channels the raw power of drums and tribal influence. Some glitch influence can be found in the song but I find this take of the Bestial Mouths’ formula to be extremely refreshing. Each bass drop is like a gut punch and I loved every moment of the beating. We continue this crawl into ‘INNARDS’. The song reminded me of something that could easily be found in a horror movie, from the electro crawl around the one-minute and thirty-second mark that could easily pair with a title sequence the rather oppressive synths, and even the haunting synths that sound like they’re breathing around the two-minute and fifty-second mark, ‘INNARDS’ is a haunted house from start to finish. 

The final song on the album is one of its most powerful. ‘River Of Thousand Tears’ is an emotional ballad from start to finish. As Cerezo stated during our interview LINKLINKLINKLINK, ‘River Of Thousand Tears’ represents her life, as does the rest of the album, but none so much as this. This is also the first song where Cerezo sings in Spanish representing her heritage. It’s heartwarming as much as it is powerful; her dual language delivery on this song is astonishing to say the very least, and the climax made me want to repeat the album in full upon finish. 

While I’ve held for a while that “HEARTLESS” has been my favorite album from Bestial Mouths since I heard it, I think that “R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)” will be replacing it. Upscale in production quality, the various genre influences, some of the most emotional output from Bestial Mouths, and more has granted “R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)” this privileged place in my own mind. This is definitely going to be an album of the year contender in four or five months’ time, and it would be an absolute mistake for anyone to miss out on this.