Torche, Henry Blacker at CCA, 28/5/15

To the uninitiated, Floridian metallers Torche present a curious proposition: sludge metal meets flashes of pop melody; black t-shirts and shaven heads; riffs that wind, spit and crunch from musicians who resolutely refuse the self-indulgence of glam. Yet with their brightly coloured third album Harmonicraft and its accomplished follow-up Restarter, they seem to be one of the few modern metal…

David K Frampton’s ROCK KORNER:

We’ve had some pretty hefty releases where the predominant focus is heavy assed rock n’ roll mangling already this 2015. So here is a little taster of them. I love heavy rock. The central concept is the riff and how a band or musician approaches the riff form any angle reflects their need for it, and some extent their cultural language. Rock and the riff is a symbiotic relationship. Rather like the drums in Afro-funk, the voice in Pop, the brass in Jazz and the bass in Dubstep, the riff is where any rock band will arrive. Some bands know this deeply and tease out it’s arrival very gradually until crunch time, other bands will budgeon through relentlessly and some will play with time signatures before unleashing.

The 1st album by Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth is a slow burning furnace. The 1st track crushes into view but it’s a trick. From then on it’s all build up, the sandblasted sound aiming relentlessly at your centre. La Mano poderosa closes with utterly thrilling menace in the final 3 minutes when Tad let’s rip with one of the heaviest rifffs of his career after Peggy and Dave French set up a series of breaks from which Tad can deploy a crumbling mountain of guitar weight. I love the drum sound on this release like a rock giant playing Samba, and the bass and guitars cling to your being somehow. I’ve hit repeat many times.

Henry Blacker’s (wonderfully named) ‘Summer Tombs’ arrives excitingly hot on the heels of their debut. The sound is deep and resonant as they plumb the well of trashy, boozy sleazy riffola. I liked the contrast between the vocals and the growly grinding riffs. What I liked was the laconic almost sung, vocal delivery contrasting with some pretty chest shaking pummelling in the rhythm section…it’s got a muscular rock n’ roll stink to it, lovingly captured as if you were right there in the room. This is a record I look forward to living inside.

In our Rock Korner we have a lovely re-issue of Jesu’s ‘Conqueror’ on Hydrahead remastered by heavy-mystik James Plotkin. The vinyl sounds gorgeous and I am in unbiased thrall to the wonderful work Justin Broadrick did on Jesu. I hope it’s a project that never ends because it’s weirdly getting more and more fascinating. ‘Conqueror’ is a shoe-gaze record owing stylising nods to Swervedriver, MBV and Spiritualized. It also has this fragility that sets it apart and emotional bearing of itself that makes it almost voyeuristically intimate. A loving record of bliss from a sensitive rock messiah.

Also mastered by James Plotkin is the 8th album by Hey Collosus ‘Black Gold’. Every record I’ve heard by this hugely heavy-sonic collective has been drenched in crushing dark-pyschedila, mantric kraut influenced sludge-core and some pretty deep excursions into noise. ‘RRR’ remains my favourite, because I still don’t get it..I’m always wrong footed…always overjoyed. But could ‘Black Gold’ be the one to topple it? After a very interesting opening salvo almost Fuxa-like in it’s sensebility, it gradually builds into a thrilling stomp of downer riffs and echoed vocals. I really love this record and it’s really great to see them get some more recognition which they truly deserve for their years of dedication to their craft.

I’m also pretty excited by the pagan/ metal-tinged aesthetic of London bleak-blaster rock combo Taman Shud who enter various realms with a pretty ragged focus on repetitive riff abandon. Their approach to the central thesis of the riff is almost cerebral. If they weren’t soldiers of metal you wonder if they might have sought a mutant form of Jazz as a need, a release. But they have sought rock. And the relish with which they deploy works wonders on the soul. Taman Shud’s ‘Viper Smoke’ is a pretty vividly black record. Occult, murky, grindy and sinewy, albeit joyously heavy…thrillingly heavy. A must for those looking to follow boozy psychik proto-metal for opium doused terror.