“Stories”, the third single taken from The Embers EP by West Midlands based Tooth & Dagger, will be available on all streaming platforms from March 31st 2023. Live dates in support of the release include Metal 2 The Masses, Birmingham in March and Bands On The Square festival, Lancashire in May. Further UK dates will be announced via social media and for full details, head to www.toothanddagger.co.uk/Events. The band performed live throughout 2022, including a guest appearance on Raw Sound TV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TA38YuaE90&t=836s). Speaking after watching a sold-out headline show, former Diamond Head frontman Sean Harris said: “Tooth & Dagger were so tight and have that unique balance between heavy and smooth. With their great songs and addictive energy, these guys are going to be massive”.
The lyrics of “Stories” blur the boundary between imagination, reality, and memory; told from a father’s perspective of his own childhood, as the monsters from bedtime stories leave the story and become real threats, before the child learns to harness their power as he becomes his own guardian. His most personal vocal performance on the EP, vocalist Dante Efemey says “Stories” is about “…how sometimes the only protection we have is to fight back. We can either do that, or we can be controlled by fear. Because it can be hard to tell which monsters are real and which aren’t, you must listen to that instinct to protect yourself and even more so, the instinct to protect a child.”. The accompanying stop-motion style lyric video (produced by Efemey and “Sinking Feelings” director Dan Hutchinson) eerily brings to life that blurry distinction between a child’s imagination and the real world, and is available via the band’s YouTube page from March 31st 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/@TandDBand)
Tooth & Dagger are Iain Sutherland (guitar), Dale Henshaw (guitar) Chris Watson (drums), Dante Efemey (lead vocal) and Lucinda Stevenson (bass/vocals). As well as their acclaimed live shows, the band have received regular radio play in both the UK and the USA; appeared on the Eclectic Picks playlist for Tom Robinson’s Fresh On The Net and their live acoustic session for Black Country Radio was featured on the compilation for the best of the year. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin frontman Jonn Penney, an early mentor of the band, sums them up like this: “How to describe Tooth & Dagger? Let’s see…. How about a potent, focused, hook-driven metal machine with songs that knock you over then coax you back to your feet again with vocals that are angelic and beastly all at once. Yep, that’d do it!”.