Moon Tooth play heavy music that doesn’t behave. Phototroph, their 2022 Pure Noise record, thrashes “like nobody’s business,” per New Noise Magazine, then pivots to a blues shuffle, or finds a vocal hook that Bandcamp Daily compared to “the blend of soulfulness and grit that Chris Cornell perfected on early Soundgarden records.” That tension is the whole band. They bring it to Empire Underground in Albany on Saturday, November 21.
About the Show
This three-date East Coast run — Braintree, MA on November 19, Butler, NJ on November 20, Albany closing it out on the 21st — comes with a significant note: guitarist Nick Lee is sitting out all three dates for medical reasons. Chris Gardino of Pathogenic steps in on guitar. Lee previously battled Limbic Encephalitis in 2022, a life-threatening neurological illness that put him in a medically-induced coma and kept him hospitalized for over a month; he returned to performing in 2023. The band, per their own statement, is “hard at work with Nick on new material.” Fans showing up for these dates are keeping that work going.
Moon Tooth formed on Long Island in 2012, self-released Chromaparagon in 2016, then made Crux in 2019 with producer Machine, with Lamb of God’s Mark Morton contributing to the writing. Phototroph followed on Pure Noise Records in May 2022. Bandcamp Daily gave it Album of the Day and called it “dizzying”; that review singled out “Nymphaeaceae” for pairing “a vulnerable vocal hook deep inside the labyrinth” of distorted riffs.
Long Island’s Cryptodira opens all three dates. They released A Storm Called Progress in June 2024 and blend “a Converge or Dillinger Escape Plan brand of chaos with lengthy song structures and manic time changing for a beautiful, yet ruthlessly aggressive sound.” The billing works.
Venue & Logistics
Empire Underground is a 500-cap club at 93 North Pearl Street in Albany, in the Capital Region. It’s the right room for Moon Tooth: close enough for the dynamics to land, big enough to hold the volume. Moon Tooth has been known to tour relentlessly — Pure Noise Records’ bio notes 100 shows in their first year — and rooms this size are where a band built like that proves why they kept going. Doors details were not confirmed in sources; showtime is 6:30 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Tickets went on sale September 4, 2026. Buy tickets