Style: Alternative metal, progressive metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mastodon, Baroness
Country: United States
Release date: 6 March 2026

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Making a four-piece band sound expansive is no mean feat, but it’s one that Long Island’s Moon Tooth accomplish handily. Drawing from the same well as sludge and stoner metal titans like Mastodon and Baroness, Moon Tooth’s music balances heft with colour, favouring dense, proggy arrangements over outright heaviness. It’s a sound they’ve honed across more than a decade and multiple releases, and one that feels both seasoned and crisp. Latest EP Bastard doesn’t reinvent that formula—but in trimming it down to seventeen minutes, Moon Tooth reveal just how much impact they can generate in miniature, offering up four tracks replete with well-oiled grooves and riffs that settled comfortably in my head throughout my time with the release.

Bastard starts with a bluff: opening track “TRUDGE” is anything but. Rather than dragging its feet, the track bursts through the barn doors on thick, workhorse riffs, ropey guitars cracking like reins pulled taut, as Moon Tooth rollick forward with controlled but muscled momentum. A lightly bluesy, Western breeze drifts across Bastard’s runtime, too. This is most apparent in John Carbone’s vocal phrasing, which is gritty and smoky, occasionally surfacing a subtle country twang. It’s an inspired fit for the band’s broader aesthetic: the sound evokes a tattooed lone ranger archetype, pacing through sun-bleached towns with a revolver at his hip. And the lyrics follow suit, leaning into a kind of far-roaming, whiskey-fuelled frontier blues mythology.

Even at their most muscular, Moon Tooth favour a stately, confident gait over outright aggression—closer in spirit to Mastodon’s sense of grandeur than their more hyperactive moments, with edges sanded down into something more introspective. That sense of control extends to Bastard’s instrumental interplay. Guitars and vocals trade passages with an unshowy assurance, flexing without ever flaunting—less the posed musculature of a gym mirror, more a sleeves-rolled-up, work-worn strength built through repetition and use. Nonetheless, flashes of panache emerge here and there: Nick Lee’s reeling, lasso-loose guitar solo in “Mire”, or the rhythmic feint that introduces “I’S”, as though drummer Ray Marte is winding up for a hardcore breakdown that’s a couple genres away down the road. This latter track stands as Bastard’s high point, amassing a weight and breadth that belies the band’s lean personnel count. And in a departure from Moon Tooth’s usual playbook, the track closes with a squall of harsh vocals, a fleeting but feral flourish.

Moon Tooth display a sharp instinct for pacing across Bastard’s tight runtime. They press forward in moments like the aforementioned heaving, full-throated climax of “I’S”, but then pull back as in the acoustic opening of closer “PUSH”, giving the listener space to breathe instead of keeping a boot pressed to their chest. But if there’s a lingering frustration with Bastard, it may be the EP’s scale. Across the four tracks, there are no obvious weak points, but Moon Tooth are almost too efficient for their own good, as I’m left wanting more. For a band working in such broad, cinematic strokes, you can’t help but wish they’d given themselves just a little more horizon to ride into. If this is just a quick pass through town, it’s enough to make you hope that Moon Tooth stick around a while next time.

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Recommended tracks:  MIRE, I’S (and while you’re at it, TRUDGE and PUSH)
You may also like: Pryne, Lord Dying
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Moon Tooth is:
– John Carbone (vocals)
– Nick Lee (guitar, vocals)
– Ray Marte (drums, vocals)
– Vincent Romanelli (bass)