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Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine - Rampton

New Kindamuzik writer Roger Teeling thought he always was too late to be part of a musical revolution. Until now, that is. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine made a record that is so revolutionary that even someone like Alec Empire will be crawling under his bed, crying because he just knows that everything he'll do in the future will be futile. Read on, and let Roger explain why Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine have bitten him so hard.

Tekst: Roger Teeling

Publicatiedatum: 04 juli 2002

Why am I always too late? Where was I when The Velvet Underground played its first gigs, the ones that made concert-hall owners decide to never let them enter their place again? And where was I when this band released its now famous banana-album? God only knows.
Or take this very first album by Black Sabbath. Reading the magazines that appeared upon its arrival, one learns that this one was considered to be straight outta hell. There were borders concerning what’s possible with this thing called music, and these borders were trespassed but big. Black Sabbath killed music. Mind you, I didn’t read all this back then. I didn’t have the knowledge, skills and –most of all – time to do so.
The first album from Venom? Missed it! Second from the Swans? Missed it! Yes. Everytime a revolution took place, everytime the World got clearly separated in the anti (majority) and the pro (minority), I was busy with something else.

Agreed, I exaggerate a little. Off course I’ve been places. When Reign In Blood by Slayer hit the town, I bought it immediately on it’s arrival. And I even kept the receipt, to prove my children that I actually was there! So… But then again, didn’t we all knew from the very beginning what this album would be like? And let’s face it, nowadays it even spins most comfortably in the jukebox at your local nursing home, meaning that, no, this album can never be the revolution I always dreamt of.
And then we have the all-devastating Scum. When Napalm Death entered the scene with this debut, in 1987, they meant it to be the end of music, as we knew it to the day. What do you get, when a drummer tries to hit as many things as hard as he can within a couple of minutes, a singer chokes his guts out after a very heavy meal, and a bass- and guitar-player use more distortion then any apparatus by then was capable of? Scum!
Nothing could ever come up to this. This was not the new step ahead in what we’ve already known for years, no, this was something totally different, something totally renewing. Of course the band could do no better then to immediately become obsolete. And of course they didn’t do so. That’s life’s way, isn’t it? The singer though, Lee Dorrian, did leave the group, right after the second album From Enslavement to Obliteration and the follow-up single The Missing Link. Revolution became evolution. Therefore revolution became devaluation. No. No. No!

But only just know I understand the true meaning of his departure. The revelation of Teeth of Lions Rule the Devine, the birth of thé album, Rampton, the true meaning of revolution. A real revolution. The one a guy like Alec Empire has been searching for for years.
Just think of it. Dutch leading metal-magazine Aardschok gave it only 20 points out of 100. And that’s a lot, considering that Dutch leading pop-music-magazine OOR refused to review it in the first place. Me myself, I gave the album 9 out of 10 points in the free magazine called MUSIC Minded. And the very first place in my year-list of 2002, up to this point. Teeth of Lions Rule the Devine. Singer Lee Dorrian, with assistance from drummer Justin Graves and guitar-players Stephen O'Malley en Greg Anderson.
Their company sells them as a stoner-group, a super-stoner-group. Rubbish! Complete rubbish. Because, let’s be honest, stoner is a genre that simply doesn’t deliver. It only lives by its parasitism on the first four albums from Black Sabbath, and the generosity of this legend, to let them do so. Teeth of Lions Rule the Devine therefore can never be stoner. This band does deliver; this band does come up with something else. They actually kill music, like everyone else should, so it can live forever.
Three tracks. One a thirty minutes long, one seven, one twenty. Only three riffs. Stoner, sure, but mostly a lot more. The grinding sound of the guitars, the very slow tempo (as one can still speak of tempo), the inhumanly low voice from the grave, and the production that simply just isn’t there. Yes, this also comes straight outta hell, straight out of one of the most no-go-area suburbs from there. Concrete heaven. Concrete decay.
Rampton is a record that’s just out there, out of a sudden, although it does have a history of it’s own. I hear Triumph of Death from Hellhammer, Warhead from Venom, Cop from The Swans, Streetcleaner from Godflesh, Nature Unveiled from Current 93, and Forest of Equilibrium from Cathedral, the latter being Dorrian's own infamous school of torture to become able to come up with this. And I also hear my parents screaming. God, how I wish that I’d still be living at my parents place! This album simply asks to tear down any authority, again, and again, and again.

In reviewing this album, I was finally able to use the joke I came up with years ago, especially for this sorta occasion: this is the ultimate album of doom. When ones aches for an abortion, just crank up this album to maximum level and most definitely all your sexual actions will bear premature fruits. O, how I awaited this album. Finally! Finally my own personal revolution, at last, at last I actually am there where it is happening.
Believe me when I say that Rampton will grow to be a cult-classic within twenty years. A pity I got it as a free promo, now I can’t prove it with a receipt that I already loved it when it was still a terribly bad album. Now I can’t prove that I not only was right in time, but also was already years ahead of it.
The smart asses among you reading this, prove what your worth, and buy this album straight out of the bargain-bin after six months. That’s even more impressive. If you all decide to definitely do not, then I will take the secret that is Rampton with me in the grave. And will argue with God for ages why I’m not allowed to play this album out loud in heaven, eternally.
But I will be back, just you watch. When the party called the apocalypse is finally here, I will be your DJ, a DJ with only one record up his sleeve.

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