### Torche: Harmonicraft

#### 15/01/13 || Habakuk

This band seems to have been around for a while – just under my radar until now. They seem to have hit it bigger than before this time around, popping up on best of the year lists here and there, but also meeting rather blunt ignorance on the other hand. I read this review where one metal dude failed to see the drug reference of the cover art and basically gave it flak for childishness and usage of happy colors. Well… The fact that they printed the whole thing on blotter paper instead of making a booklet obviously never reached him, either.

The message from such an artwork of course is that this plays in a different league than most metal albums. “Harmonicraft” sounds like a couple of Floridians mistook themselves for desert rocking Californians, bought FAT strings and went off, sweeping along a definite metal influence, a lot of laidback sludgy feel and a curious, super clean vocal approach. It works in some weird way, but it’s way different and less gritty than what I’ve so far experienced with similar bands. I just read the folks actually called their style “thunder pop” themselves somewhere. And if you take away the sugary connotations and just assume a certain catchiness from unusually clear vocals and some very effective song twists, that actually gives you a good image.

These guys obviously love the sound of their guitars, and the massive production gives them any right in the world to do so. Consequently, we are treated with lots of thick open-note fuzz created by twin guitars and the huge bass working the same paths most of the time – and when they want to, they punch the riffs down your throat with no prisoners taken (“Kiss me dudely”, “Skin moth”, “Walk it off”). At other times however, the album rather takes things easy and blurs the guitars to a backing for ethereal vocal soarings (“Letting go”, “Solitary Traveller”), or lets them join in with them altogether (“Snakes are charmed”). It’s enjoyable, but I guess I should get into pot more to really feel that shit. The same variety is mirrored in the song lengths which differ from 1:18 to 6:41 minutes, which is something I’d typically expect from a Melvins album. That and the music itself make me assume Torche have studied them well, adapting their insane heaviness, paired with a resilience against being lumped into a category with less varied bands.

To wrap this up – take an easy step first and listen to the instrumental title track. If you like what you hear, then take step #2 and delve into these guys some more, but definitely listen to more than a few tracks. It’ll definitely be one of your more interesting listening experiences out of the recently passed 2012. Just keep in mind that “heavy” for once does not exactly include “heavy metal” here.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Volcom Entertainment
- Website: www.torchemusic.com
- Band
- Steve Brooks: vocals, guitars
- Jonathan Nuñez: bass, guitars, synths
- Andrew Elstner: guitar, vocals
- Richard Smith: drums, percussion

- Tracklist
- 01. Letting go
- 02. Kicking
- 03. Walk it off
- 04. Reverse inverted
- 05. In pieces
- 06. Snakes are charmed
- 07. Sky trials
- 08. Roaming
- 09. Skin moth
- 10. Kiss me dudely
- 11. Solitary traveller
- 12. Harmonicraft
- 13. Looking on