Band: Torche
Album: Songs For Singles
Label: Hydra Head Records
Release date: 09/21/10
Torche are having a good time and they want you to have fun too. I don’t always know what singer/guitarist Steve Brooks is saying, but he sounds damn happy on 90% of the songs I hear him sing these days. It probably doesn’t hurt that many critics put Meanderthal in their top records of 2008 and that the band has also been picking up better and better tours for the last few years, bringing them to the forefront of heavy rock. Though the 8 tracks on the new release Songs for Singles run about as long as a grind record and were written around a 3-piece, they still sound massive and they deliver confidently.
Evolving from late incarnations of grungy/doom behemoth FLOOR, Mr. Brooks and Co. have been strategically adding more pop candy sprinkles to their hot sludge sundaes. Like Justin Broadrick on happy pills, Brooks’s hooks and emotional vocal delivery seem to lead this record, where as earlier material found on the first full length Torche and the In Return EP rely more on the “heavy as the earth itself” riffing and more prevalent use of the z-tuned bomb string. Those sounds can still be found here, but there is a noticeable void that second guitarist Juan Montoya use to occupy. Brooks has to cover much more sonically, but that’s not a bad thing per se. Performance wise the band is in great form and with repeat listens, it’s easy to feel the record and hear what is really there…which reveals quite a variety. From the get go, skin smasher Rick Smith commands your arms into playing air drums on the rockin’ opener “UFO” and he doesn’t let up with fist pumping crunch of “Hideaway.” You can hear My Bloody Valentine-like ambient chord strumming of “Face the Wall,” then similar to Chicago’s finest…The Smashing Pumpkins(!), the song “Out Again” crushes beautifully with it’s layered harmonic denseness that takes me back to the first time I heard Siamese Dream as a kid. I may be wrong but it even sounds like I heard a banjo buried in there towards the end….sweet!
The sounds are still very organic and unprocessed on here, which is one reason I appreciate Torche. They always sound very alive and real even on record, providing the paying customer with zero false advertising. But when it really comes down to it, it’s very simple. It’s so much fun that Songs for Singles’ 8 mini-anthems will have you dance while you headbang and will ultimately add some sunshine to the sometimes all too dark and gloomy heavy music scene. While some bring the evil and darkness to rock, Torche bring the party to metal.
4 / 5
- N.Emde
