Sunday, April 27, 2008

Torche Meanderthal


Out of the din comes the melody, Torche may not be able to translate their records into magic on stage, but they continue to push the sludge pop or metal pop envelope on their new record Meanderthal on Hydrahead. They are not suffering from any sophomore slump (although a 7 song ep is technically the sophomore release we will ignore that fact for the sake of my analogy).
I didn't think the phrase meanderthal was used outside of Brighton and never would thought I would see it as a song or lp title, but who knew?
These guys mine a pretty weird combo of metal and pop that is super catchy and makes for good driving music or working on the bike music. I can only imagine the superlatives that Aquarius is going to create to hurl at this record-which it deserves 100%. (Check here for proof) I was afraid that they were heading down the prog rock revival road with the opener,but they pull it back together on "Grenades". When the rock out in a more straight metal fashion a la "Sandstorm" they are good, but they achieve the next level when the up the hooks on tunes like "Healer" and "Across the Shields". Those two tracks are fucking epic as is "Fat Waves" which goes from poppy to almost bitch magnet level rock (think a better produced ben-hur) The rest of the record has a pretty Melvin'ish feel and is killer but those catchier songs are sick. The slow it down a drop it for the Floor fans near the end.
Artwork isn't much to write home about, but chances are you'll hear this coming out of shiny little Ipods not CD players so who cares
Grab it and rock out. Summer's coming

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