Long break = long post, sort of

Here's where I appologize for not posting more regularly. My story is simple I got backed up on vacation and didn't want to post until I got caught up. Then with each day there was that much more to catch up until it was overwhelming, blah blah blah. Yes I fell into lazy blogger syndrome. Hopefully anyone who ever read this can forgive me.

Maybe I'll post a "catching up" entry soon. My plan is not to let it ruin future posting, though, so we'll see.

But enough of that, here is where I praise Torche and "Vampyros"
Day: past week or so
Artist: Torche
Song: "Vampyros"
Source: self-titled album

Torche is almost a guilty pleasure. At the record collective I volunteer at, we get a bunch of the southern lord-type records amongst all the punk releases: slow, detuned rumblings that last for dozens of minutes made by cryptic figures with names like Earth, Sunn0))), Sleep. Torche has some similarities. They are slow,low, and heavy, but a lot more listener friendly. My knee-jerk reaction is to go for the more difficult, purer expression; and when I look at it honestly, Torche feel like a lite version of said bands, hence the potential guilt.

But, like a said, "almost". It's hard to care much about guilt when band blends heaviness and melody as well as Torche do on their self titled debut. Take "Vampyros" for example. Do you remember Louder than Love-era Soundgarden? Wished they were somehow more sabbath-y and had managed to travel forward in time, listened a few Jawbreaker records, and then go back? Maybe then have Quicksand or Helmet cover the results? "Vampyros" is for you.

THis song is more driving than usual, operating at a high midtempo instead of sludge time. The song is propelled by a palm-muted chugging, (but not chugga-chugga, I doubt they are nailed to the X -- their sonic contemporaries are labeled "stoner rock", after all. [speaking of which, since when did all the dope smoking bands play slow heavy rock? I remember the days when an affection of marijana lead directly to membership in a grindcore band or trading dead tapes. Am I out of touch?]) riff on the same power chord. 10-15 years ago I just would have just noticed the heaviness of the sound, but in my post Godspeed and Sterolab days, I notice how great a drone/pedal tone effect it creates, especially when the vocals kick in. Steve Brooks actually sings and its downright catchy and kinda interesting as these things go. The phrasing is offtime and the notes jump around a bit, as if he were bouncing off the chugga drone line (is it too much to campare it to a trampoline? oh well I guess I just did).

But like all good pop songs (and make no mistake about it, this is a pop song, even if it is a pop song that sounds like a gigantic locamotive that has run out of tracks but trudges on anyway) they save the best stuff from the chorus. They stop muting their guitars allowing the power chords to stretch out. The vocal melody becomes for focused and less rambling and if you aren't hooked by the jump Steve Brooks makes between "vam" and "pires" (accompanied by doubled vocals for extra impact) you're just not paying attention. And the bridge, ah the bridge. The two parts of the song merge seemlessly together by both guitars playing interweaving single note lines, taking the stacato drive from the verse, while allowing the notes to ring out, foreshadowing the tunefulness of the chorus.

And of course, what an awesome title. Of course its silly, but what else do you sing over a heavy palm muted riff? You could sing about devils, but its hard to take any of that seriously these days. I suppose the other option is misanthropic doom, but it doesn't fit and its been done so much, again its hard to take seriously. Torche doesn't even try, instead offering a impressionistic grab bag of metal imagery. Sometimes it works (the line "vampires own the night" has a certain ring to it) sometimes it sounds like they are fishing ("harikari/missionary" huh?). But come on what's cooler than fire or vampires, unless its fire AND vampires.