One thing we really appreciate about Bestial Mouths is that their darkwave has always remained firmly rooted in the legacy of industrial music. Since their debut as a band in 2009, Bestial Mouths have always bombarded us with cold, distorted sounds whilst incorporating a lyricism and theatricality borrowed from the goth scene. Bestial Mouths underwent a transformation in 2018, with Californian artist Lynette Cerezo now the sole creative force behind the project; this has resulted in her music taking on a more ritualistic quality, hypnotising us on strange journeys into the darker side of emotions centred on stagnation and trauma.
The last album of original tracks we’ve had from Bestial Mouths dates back to 2023; it was R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), followed by a very good remix album (yes, they do exist). Since then, the United States – where Lynette Cerezo lives – has changed, and not for the better from her point of view. It is therefore with anger and dismay that she presents her ninth studio album, Dead Lines (líneas muertes), to us this year.
Dead Lines is, in fact, an album that explores the invisible yet rigid boundaries within which we are confined in our alienating societies; crossing these boundaries can lead to death, whilst feeling suffocated by them can lead to a furious revolt. Bestial Mouths thus shifts here to a more social than individual focus, for which Lynette Cerezo has enlisted the services of Brant Showers (∆AIMON, SØLVE) as producer and co-composer.
The result is a heavy, tense album, built on dark electronic sounds dominated by percussion, haunted by Lynette Cerezo’s cries – be they cries for help, growls or outbursts of fury. The sounds are at times reminiscent of Youth Code, but Dead Lines is a more static album, trapping us within its pounding rhythms before exploding, making us feel the iron cage in which we live; an album caught in a constant tension between suffocation and eruption, as the band themselves put it, in a cycle of pain and reaction. The lyrics are steeped in violence, whether it be the violence that oppresses or that which seeks to break free from oppression – Bestial Mouths indeed present their album as dedicated to anyone who understands the desperate frustration that drives one to burn everything around them. The haunting power of this soundscape and the expressiveness of Lynette Cerezo’s vocals make Dead Lines an extraordinarily haunting and captivating album, which constantly urges us to break our chains.
With just eight relatively short tracks, Dead Lines is a very consistent album, where the intensity never quite lets up. Its energy really hits home on the first two tracks, Chord and Conjure. Also worth noting is Deadening, a rebellious anthem in which Bestial Mouths quote a speech by the American socialist representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, repeating her slogan ‘We don’t have to live like this’, which Bestial Mouths accompany with heavy, raw samples; here, Bestial Mouths follow in the footsteps of Test Dept’s use of quotes from Alan Sutcliffe or Tony Benn, as a way of elevating aspirations for emancipation. Perhaps the most surprising and successful of these eight tracks is Garras, with its delightfully unsettling atmosphere, in which Lynette Cerezo sings in Spanish (“Dame Mis Garras / Devuelveme mis garras” – “Give me back my claws”) – she explained in an interview with our colleagues at Destroy Exist that her Puerto Rican heritage meant more to her now, as is also evidenced by the Spanish subtitle líneas muertes.
Dead Lines (líneas muertes) is therefore an excellent album, both dark and powerful. We can only thank Bestial Mouths for their creativity and courage.
