the clean production of With Teeth in opposition to the Fragile makes me imagine its setting very vividly. compared to TDS (grime, insects, sweat, semen, rot, drying blood) and TF (dirt, wilting flowers, salt water, tree branches, death), both of which make me think of raw, dirty, natural environments, With Teeth is the opposite.
i think of a more modern-day mental health institution, everything a blinding white, everything sterile and smelling of ammonia and other such chemicals, fluorescent lights never burning out or even flickering like they would in TDS. white socks, white patient’s garb, tiny little white room with a thin white bed that isn’t particularly comfortable but does its job well enough. soap and hand sanitizer. a plain-looking but modern analog clock ticks by on the wall. it’s miserable and dull and, more than anything, sort of a listless life, but you don’t want to go back to being what you used to be. that’s the one thing you’re afraid of more than anything.
and there’s nothing natural here except for the sunlight and the rain (which you can smell, too, if you’re lucky); it’s all in the middle of a bustling city, just one gray slab of concrete, with people constantly passing by but none of them ever seeming to realize you’re there. you take medicine and you get better, or so they say. they give you hollow platitudes. there are thousands of people around you; you’re not physically alone like you were in the previous two albums. but you still feel like you are.
