Torche - Harmonicraft

An anomaly of sorts within the metal world, Miami-based quartet Torche have been confusing and delighting in equal amounts since their formation in 2004. Musically, they’re unabashedly joyful, yet they’ve always remained strident in their rock roots. With a plethora of past bands between their members – including Floor, Cavity, Shitstorm, Tunes For Bears To Dance To, Riddle Of Steel and Tilts – the group have always been a centrum of integration, and as their first release on Volcom, after stints on Rock Action and Hydra Head, Harmonicraft sees Torche at the pinnacle of their musical reinvention.

Torche have been described in many musical terms over the years: stoner metal, sludge metal, “metallic sludge” – yet their music has always encompassed a kick of powerful pop melodies and a penchant for the unusually uplifting, as showcased on their critically acclaimed 2008 second album Meanderthal. On Harmonicraft, Steve Brooks’ vocals remain central to Torche’s dual dynamics: powerful, yet smooth, melodious, yet lyrically often indecipherable. Meanwhile new guitarist Andrew Elstner – replacing Juan Montoya – slides into the formation nicely while bringing his own style to the band, particularly during the solos on tracks such as ‘Off The Wall’ and ‘Looking On’.

The colourful, graffiti-like cartoon artwork may not give anything away to someone unfamiliar with the band, yet it does betray the inherent sense of fun that permeates the entirety of Harmonicraft. Nowhere is this notion of joviality demonstrated more than on first single ‘Kicking’, clearly the band’s most commercial track to date, yet thoroughly enjoyable and frenetic nonetheless. It might only be the album’s second track, yet it’s one of the very best. That’s not to say that the rest of the album is a disappointment, rather that it truly sets the record’s entire tone with its statement of intent. It’s unapologetic, upbeat, all-out stadium rock, and its elated nature is a theme that weaves its way throughout the remainder of the record.

‘Skin Moth’ and ‘Sky Trials’ continue this upbeat attack: both are thundering and immediate, cutting straight to the heart of the action. ‘Snakes Are Charmed’’s surprisingly frantic introduction threads its way through the ongoing melody, its guitar riffs as hypnotic as its title would suggest, while ‘Walk It Off’ is simply one-and-a-half minutes of frenetic noise, its escalated guitar solo quickly cementing Eltsner’s place within the band. It’s not all breakneck speed however, as fourth track ‘Reverse Inverted’ and its follower ‘In Pieces’ demonstrate. Later ‘Solitary Traveller’ also slows the pace, its tuned-down, chugging guitar lines and drawn out vocals epitomising the sludge accolade that they are often tagged with. It’s tracks such as these that accentuate the fact that Torche’s music feels both classic and of its time. While there’s certainly an ‘80s and early ‘90s sound to both Torche’s vocals and their string harmonies, it has been updated in a manner that very much places the band in the here and now.

At 39 minutes long Harmonicraft comprises a set of songs of varying lengths, each track acting as individual counterparts to one another. In typical Torche fashion, they save their longest track for last, the expansive ‘Looking On’, which stretches out its final minutes. The careful placing of songs – moments of heightened elation followed by the sweeping slowness of doom – showcases a mixture of styles, structures and emotions, while ensuring that their listeners are constantly kept guessing. As such Torche should continue to have widespread appeal, amalgamating as they do so many components of different genres, from the heavy hooks of the wonderfully-titled ‘Kiss Me Dudely’ and the echoing vocals of ‘Roaming’, through to the instrumental penultimate title track ‘Harmonicraft’.

While the album might not showcase a dramatic evolution from what Torche have produced before, it’s certainly a refined and honed collection of what they have crafted so well throughout the members’ collective careers. In fact Harmonicraft sees Torche bigger and braver than ever, and there’s no doubting that the quartet are unafraid of their renewed sense of commerciality: rather they’ve finally fully embraced it. As a perfect starting point for anyone who’s bypassed the band prior to this release, Harmonicraft shows Torche at the height of all that they can continue to achieve: wielding their metal credentials within the realms of pure, vibrant rock melodies.