July 31, 2008

Torche - Meanderthal

Heavy lightness? One one hand Torche manages to create a wall of heavy and repetitive guitar riffing and one the other hand they manage to lift the music up from the swamp of mainstream sludge. Singer Steve Brooks also sings much more melodic than most of he’s fellow singers of the genre. It’s a genius mix of horror-heavy doomish pop and Melvins inspired circus-stonerrock. There’s also a strange feel of Helmet in the production of drums and guitars in some songs like ie “Sundown”! The whole album is one long suite bound together with sharp precision. In my opinion this is a masterpiece, not only as a Torche album, but also compared to the bunch of heavy riffing epic hardcore stuff as the like of Pelican and so on – this record makes me smile while pushed to the wall by the heaviness. Torche is highly recommended for anyone into anything from funeral doom to geeky post-rock.

You can hear the whole album here >>