Anterrabae - And Our Heart Beat in Our Fingertips...

I was thrown off by the way this band is packaged. From name to CD cover and lyrics there is little that prepared me for the full-force, old-fashioned heavy metal of this band. The album, And Our Heart Beat in Our Fingertips, Without Reason includes songs with titles like “Filthy Habits of Ex Lovers” and “Investigating the Phantom Signal” and “My Wrists are Rivers, My Fingers are Words.” Not only that, but take the band’s name: Anterrabae – a name taken from a book called I Never Promised You a Garden by Joanne Greenberg (a story about a sixteen year-old girl who retreats into her own imagination, creating an often dangerous kingdom.) But from the second I popped this album into the player, I could tell that Anterrabae is more than the sum of its parts. The music is abrasive, intense, and about as volatile as a Molotov Cocktail. This is alternative metal at its finest. With most of the tracks clocking in around the three-and-a-half minute mark, the tracks have the heavy guitar, pounding drums (complete with crashing symbols and chest-shaking bass drums), and screamed vocals we expect from this genre. Included in the first track are muffled guitar solos, backing audio samples, and a break down at the end which could be the auditory interpretation of an asthma attack. The intelligence of the band’s lyrics, experiments with timing (eg.5/4 timing of “The Filthy Habits of Ex Lovers”--by all rights a stand-out track) are definite high-points, as are the instrumental track “Investigating the Phantom Signal” which has the sort of edgy, brooding drone, that makes for good movie soundtracks. In Greenberg’s novel Anterrabae is a god perpetually falling to earth in a shower of fire. I think that pretty much sums up the blaze-of-glory feel of this band. [www.anterrabae.com]