Today we have the album ‘Harmonicraft’ by ‘Torche’ reviewed by our resident reviewer Mohammad Kabeer.
Tracklist:
- “Letting Go” – 2:03
- “Kicking” – 2:35
- “Walk it Off” – 1:25
- “Reverse Inverted” – 3:50
- “In Pieces” – 3:09
- “Snakes Are Charmed” – 3:14
- “Sky Trials” – 1:18
- “Roaming” – 3:20
- “Skin Moth” – 3:18
- “Kiss Me Dudely” – 1:48
- “Solitary Traveler” – 2:48
- “Harmonicraft” – 3:15
- “Looking On” – 6:40
Modern Sludge has never really been something interesting for me, while most bands sound like Mastodon clones the others like Baroness and Kylesa are nice but somehow don’t really quite catch my fancy. Torche is definitely an exception to this rule, I was very much impressed with their last album Meanderthal. They had a very unique take on the genre which made their sound quite fresh, I was eagerly awaiting their new album to see if they would bring something new to their already distinctive sound, and I found out eventually that it was quite a handful.
Torche is a four piece from Miami, Florida consisting of Steve Brooks(Guitars/Vocals), Jonathan Nuñez(bass),Rick Smith(drums) and Andrew Elstner(guitar,vocals). The band’s sound in general can be described as mixture of hard alternative rock with modern sludge metal , and this is something that is prevalent here as well as the band mixes warm, mildly distorted hard rock guitar work which also includes some really dramatic wails which can be heard in the tracks “Letting go” and “Reverse Inverted” with the more high gain groovy almost fuzzy distortion that you hear from most modern sludge bands today, so basically what you get is hard rock played with sludge metal sensibilities, which is honest simple and takes me back to the age of the Smashing Pumpkins when bands were rocking hard , making music that was fast, loud yet very positive, uplifting and really fun to jump around, unlike today where hard rock is pretty much dead and if you want to listen to something like that then there is only sinister Metal or gritty Hardcore.
In that respect I think Torche are a breath of fresh air , and this album only adds to this as there a lot of diversity in both the mood and tempo and genre of the songs. You have songs like Kicking, Kiss Me Dudley and Roaming ,Snakes are Charmed and Sky Trials which are pretty uplifting and are definitely the faster songs in the album with the exception of Snakes are Charmed, which btw has elements of synthpop (surprising isn’t it?) while songs like Reverse Inverted , Solitary traveler and Looking on are some of the slower tracks on this album ,In fact Solitary traveler is a pretty deep serious ballad, probably one of the most deepest songs the band has done and Looking on is also a complete departure from the bands sound as it goes into doom territory.
Overall I would say that this is a much more balanced album having songs that vary between different moods and tempos and further improves their already well crafted, definietely worth a listen.
Don’t forget to visit the band website for more goodies!
Also show their facebook page some love!
The Slumbering Ent 