London alternative rock band Tooth make growing up sound painfully raw and alive on “The Age of Innocence,” a feverish debut single that turns the end of youth into a cathartic reminder that nobody reaches adulthood unbruised.

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Stream: “The Age of Innocence” – Tooth

Youth rarely ends in a clean break; more often, it drifts out of reach one charged, confusing night at a time.

Tooth’s feverish debut single “The Age of Innocence” lives in that restless threshold between adolescence and whatever comes next, where desire tangles with nostalgia, heartbreak cuts deeper than expected, and the future glows just far enough down the road to feel both thrilling and impossible. Arresting, raw, and remarkably assured, it’s one of the most electrifying debut singles in recent memory – a bristling, big-hearted rush of guitar music from a band who already sound like they know exactly how to make growing up feel loud, messy, and alive.

The pavement cracked under my feet
As my thoughts were caught in a daydream
Oh, stuck in a dream
And the streetlights lingered in my eyes
As Sophia started to sigh
When they kissed, I wanted to cry

Released in late January via Soil To The Sun Recordings, “The Age of Innocence” introduced Tooth with all the force of a band kicking the door open mid-song. The London four-piece – Tom Pollock on guitar and vocals, Ben Ashley on guitar, Charlie Arnison on bass, and Roy Lowe on drums – have spent the past few years sharpening their sound through “riotous live shows” and a growing presence across the UK circuit, marrying anthemic alternative, second-wave emo, and garage rock into a sound that feels furiously finessed and gloriously unstable.

Their shows have earned a reputation for shout-along choruses, erratic noise, sweat, and communal release, leading to enviable support dates with Keo, Dust, Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Men An Tol, and more, as well as festival appearances across the UK. Even before releasing a song, Tooth had begun building the kind of mythology most new bands spend years chasing; with “The Age of Innocence,” they made good on it.

“We’re just a bunch of mates who like guitar music and being in each other’s company,” Tooth tell Atwood Magazine. “We want our music to get to those who enjoy the same shit as us, and for the live shows to demonstrate that we don’t rly know what we are doing but we like working it out together.”

Their friendship is the pulse running through the song.

Written just before the band left school – and, fittingly, the first song they wrote together as Tooth – “The Age of Innocence” captures the strange emotional weather of early adulthood before anyone has the language to explain it. The world feels open, but not simple. Desire feels urgent, but misdirected. The night stretches on, streetlights blur, and every feeling seems to arrive with a bruise already attached. Pollock sings, “Oh, but I didn’t think youth would get so complicated,” and the line lands with aching clarity: A sudden realization that innocence does not vanish all at once, but fractures in flashes – a kiss witnessed from the outside, a crush that points somewhere deeper, a heartache too fresh to hide.

“It was the first song we wrote together as Tooth,” the band share. “It was written just before we all left school and we all were experiencing this strange transition from youth to early adulthood. The song reflects fondly on adolescence and holds hope for whatever’s up t’road.”

Oh, but I didn’t think youth
would be this complicated
It’s a certain fate,
I’ll never think straight
Is there point in lust?
Must I just brace the bruise?
When I only liked her
’cause she looked a bit like you

This duality – fondness and confusion, memory and momentum – gives “The Age of Innocence” its emotional charge. Recorded at Church Studios in Crouch End with producer Kev Jones, mixed by Vince Ratti, and mastered by Will Yip, the track recreates the immediacy and ambition of Tooth’s live show while preserving its turbulence. The drums roll forward with feverish urgency; the guitars cut and shimmer with spiky, Walkmen-like bite; Pollock’s voice carries the whole thing with a raw, invigorating force that makes every chorus feel like a room suddenly shouting back. The song’s structure is tight, but its spirit is unruly – timeless songwriting lit up by the bristling electricity of youth in motion.

And heartache is hardest to hide
But she blushеd when he clutched to hеr waistline
Troubled valentine
Then the daylight settled on the walls
I’d lost track in the black of nightfall
Sinking into withdrawal

Out now, Tooth’s debut EP Restless in Bloom widens that first spark into a five-song statement of arrival.

Across “Schoolyard,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Wallflower,” “Medicine,” and “Restless in Bloom,” the band trace the emotional residue of their formative years: Friendship, self-discovery, hidden brilliance, nervous energy, and the ache of becoming. “Wallflower,” unveiled alongside the EP, pushes that same tension toward something towering and cathartic, its soft-loud dynamics and walls of guitar swelling around the desire to be seen. Pollock has described the EP as a collection that captures who they were and “all the emotions of that time,” and that sense of shared memory runs through every track. “The Age of Innocence” remains its first great revelation – the song that people initially gravitated toward in their set, the one that felt like both beginning and ending, the sound of a band recognizing itself by writing through a moment none of them could quite define.

“We feel relieved putting the song out as it feels like it’s been hanging around for a while,” Tooth say. “It’s the first tune that people who now regularly come to shows, initially gravitated towards in our set. Everyone goes through that period and so we hope it can be some kind of comfort.”

The comfort Tooth hope to offer is what makes “The Age of Innocence” so special. For all its ruckus, bite, and live-wire momentum, the song is ultimately tender – a hand reaching back toward the selves we were before everything became more complicated. It honors adolescence without romanticizing the ache of leaving it behind: The sweetness, embarrassment, lust, confusion, and bruising beauty of realizing a chapter is closing even as another waits ahead. Tooth don’t arrive here like a band asking for permission; they arrive like a band already in motion, already sweaty and singing, already surrounded by a room full of people who know the words. If this is their opening statement, then “The Age of Innocence” announces a promising new band and captures the exhilarating sound of one blooming in real time.

And I tried
But I know I can’t do it again
But I wonder if it will always be like this
The age of innocence
The age of innocence

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:: stream/purchase Restless in Bloom here ::

:: connect with Tooth here ::

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Stream: ‘Restless in Bloom’ – Tooth

A CONVERSATION WITH TOOTH

Tooth: We’re just a bunch of mates who like guitar music and being in each others company. We want our music to get to those who enjoy the same shit as us, and for the live shows to demonstrate that we don’t rly know what we are doing but we like working it out together.

Tooth: Tooth came from us desperately looking for a name until Roy (drums) told us about a necklace his grandma had given him that had his uncles baby teeth as the pendant.

Tooth: We are excited about being amongst lots of great bands and being inspired by our friends. We’ve realised that we want to make music that represents our relationship as a group.

• Roy – Levon Helm
• Ben – Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Tom – Paul Westerberg
• Charlie – Phil Lynott

Tooth: It was the first song we wrote together as Tooth. It was written just before we all left school and we all were experiencing this strange transition from youth to early adulthood. The song reflects fondly on adolescence and holds hope for whatever’s up t’road.

Tooth: We feel relieved putting the song out as it feels like it’s been hanging around for a while. It’s the first tune that people who now regularly come to shows, initially gravitated towards in our set. Everyone goes through that period and so we hope it can be some kind of comfort.

Tooth: We’re currently in the van on the way to Manchester to play with Keo. Our current ‘band’ song is Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith which needs no explaining. Right now, Forever by TTSFU is playing which we like. We’ve had Pavement, Thin Lizzy, Wilco, Shame, Blur, Sorry, CSN&Y, Simon and Garfunkel and the list goes on.

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:: stream/purchase Restless in Bloom here ::

:: connect with Tooth here ::

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Stream: “The Age of Innocence” – Tooth

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