Just in case you weren’t already feeling overwhelmed by all the new shit that’s streaming today, Stereogum has a new Torche track, “U.F.O.” I don’t really know what to say about it, other than it sounds like Torche, by which I mean it’s pretty fuzzy and really catchy, like an STD you’d get from sleeping with Alf. [Obligatory "Alf loved to eat pussy" joke here.]

Anyways, the good news is it’s only 1:53 long, so it won’t take too much time out of your day, which, like I said, is already being eaten away by lotsa other new stuff. The bad news is, it’s only 1:53 long, so like that time in junior high school that you finally convinced Sarah Lifshin to let you feel her up over her shirt, it’s gonna be over way too soon.

Check out the song here. “U.F.O.” will be on Torche’s latest, Songs for Singles, which comes out September 21 on Hyrda Head.

-AR

Here’s an album to be legitimately excited about in a 110% non-sarcastic way: Torche have announced a September 21 release date for their new album, Songs for Singles, via Hydra Head.

I’ve never been as over-the-moon about Torche as some, but only a person I strongly disagree with would ever say they’re  a bad band. And while we don’t have any new music to judge just yet, there is the minimalist album art, which suggests to me that this is going to be a very, very classy record. The font immediately made me think of Faith No More’s Songs to Make Love To, but the absence of humping rhinos means my mother will never ask me, “What the fuck is this?” (It’s also entirely possible that I just have FNM on the mind, since we’re seeing them tomorrow night.)

Hopefully we’ll get to hear some of this bad boy real soon, and we can have a more substantiative conversation about it at that point. In the meantime, get stoked!

-AR

Ever wonder where that sick band Torche came from?

At the heart of that crunchy uptempo feel-good Florida trio (once-quartet) is a man by the name of Steve Brooks on guitar and vocals, who also had a hand in creating another energetic & anthemic Florida stoner doom relic by the name of Floor.

Floor went through several lineup changes through its on again-off again tempestuous run from 1992 to 2004, but the constant of Brooks kept the sound grounded (mostly) in a pretty distinguishable style that puts the vigorously vibrant energy of each song in the foreground and drops hooks aplenty.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, Floor got a hell of a lot sludgier and heavier than Torche typically does.

The band has reunited for a few shows in support of their recently-released massively-sized box set, pictured below (ten 12″ LPs, one 7″ EP, 8 CDs, 32-page booklet…..take that, LoG!) called Below and Beyond, which you can order right here.

They played Chicago last Tuesday and Philly last night (sorry for the late notice!), and are going to rock the fuck out of Brooklyn tonight at Club Europa…

Visit Floor on OurSpace

-KW

Photo credit: EmpyreLounge.com

My interview with Coheed & Cambria guitarist Travis Stever got off to a bit of a slow start. I believe I was his first interview of the morning in a long line of many, and he was audibly a bit groggy after a rough night of sleep on the bus. But after a few questions Stever got into the flow of things, and started talking at length about his band’s new record Year of the Black Rainbow, their current tour with Circa Survive and Torche, working with ex-Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie, the Neverender series of shows and the thrill of playing Madison Square Garden.

We only had fifteen minutes to talk before Stever was whisked away to his next interview, but we got plenty accomplished in that time. Our chat, after the jump.

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Check out this time-lapse video of artist Esao Andrews painting the cover of Circa Survive’s forthcoming album Blue Sky Noise. My missive against the relevance of album art be damned, this is pretty fucking cool. Many of you will immediately write this band off because of the way their vocalist sounds, and many of you will will (rightly) declare they aren’t metal… but hey, fuck you, it’s my website!

Blue Sky Noise comes out on 4/20. You can catch Circa Survive on tour with Coheed & Cambria and Torche this Spring.

-VN

I always really dig tours that match together a bunch of bands who don’t really fit into any one scene. When these kinds of bands are awkwardly placed on bills with a bunch of bands that don’t sound like them the end result is that die-hard fans of said bands don’t bother attending and those who do attend are completely uninterested. A great example of this phenomenon is the way Protest the Hero toured with one shit band after the next in support of Fortress; it wasn’t until they capped the album cycle with a headline run that I finally got to see them live.

Check out this recently announced Spring tour that groups together a bunch of such individual-minded bands: Coheed & Cambria, Torche and Circa Survive. How cool is that? All these bands sound totally different from one another but they’re united in their unwillingness to fit into any one scene. It’s a perfect fit, and for a change anyone that goes to see one specific band will probably end up digging the others too.

Coheed & Cambria and Circa Survive will both have new albums to promote, and while Torche won’t have anything new (that I’m aware of) it’ll be a great opportunity for them to spread their wings outside of their indie-metal centric fanbase. Have a look at the full list of dates after the jump.

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No, that’s not a reference to Steve Brooks’s sexual preferences. But it is the title of a new Torche song, the first they’ve recorded since guitarist Juan Montoya’s departure from the band in late 2008. The genetic makeup of the band isn’t the only way in which Torche are different today than they were on Meanderthal; “King Beef,” which the good folks at The Deciblog are premiering at the moment, is darker in tone, heavier, and way more experimental than anything on that album. “Stoner pop” no more…

We at MetalSucks don’t have nearly the undiscriminating boner for the band that Decibel does, and I certainly don’t think this band deserves all of the OH MY GOD TORCHE priase they seem to get (much like, ahem, Converge). But they’re definitely a good band; in fact, Meanderthal nabbed an honorable mention on my own Best of 2008 list. I hope Torche’s next record is as good as Meanderthal, but if “King Beef” is any indication it’s gonna be a totally different beast. And as well it should be; when I saw Torche live as a 3 piece it was clear that those songs — penned for two guitarist — just didn’t work as well without Montoya.

“King Beef” is taken from Torche’s upcoming split 10-inch with Boris, due out on Hydra Head in February. Hydra Head bossman Mark Thompson says a Torche full-length will follow in June.

-VN

Torche – King Beef from Scion A/V on Vimeo.

From time to time in the past we’ve exchanged e-mails with The Austerity Program‘s Justin Foley, and the dude’s e-mails were so goddamn funny (not to mention smart) that we finally asked him to write for us. Hopefully Justin’s contributions to MetalSucks will become a regular, or at least semi-regular, occurrence. Enjoy!

MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THAT BAD VILLAGE VOICE THING. I KNOW, IT’S BEST TO IGNORE THESE THINGS BUT I JUST CAN’T THIS TIME.

“O Confusion! Cruel mistress – thou who would lead thine servants to slaughter like a lamb also gets led (Ed – to slaughter). Cruel! Innocent lambs, gently editing metal blogs, knowing not of your unkind plans nor the wicked scroll of fate.” Henry VI, Act 4

Like many of you jokers, I was struck with a growing sadness as I read the nonsense that that nice Wingerschmidt boy posted the other day. Sadness because it really missed the main point about the Voice’s article –a refreshingly pure distillation of concentrated bullshit. Fortunately, I didn’t miss it and neither did many of those who commented. But just in case there’s any doubt, let me tell you why that Voice writer has it so, so wrong.

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Now I’m not saying I agree with all, most, or even any of the points made in Stewert Voegtlin’s recent bitter-tastic Village Voice article (aptly entitled “Sketchy Metal”), but holy jeez a voice of dissension should be appreciated, welcome, and even necessary at times, especially when certain bands are so blindly revered by so many…..and furthermore anybody who can bring such a well-worded subtly sardonic taste to their Hateology (free album title!) a la our own Gary Suarez deserves a complimentary bong hit.

The article starts out with an analysis on Pelican’s sound (or lack thereof), positing that the Chicago band’s thang never crystallizes into anything approaching authentic emotion, but that some bands that Pelican derives influence from (Trans Am, in particular) have made plenty of music worth veneration, especially back in the day.  Hmm……agreed.

I almost joined the Train of Descent (free band name!) recently myself when I was considering writing an article — which was to be called MASTODON EVOLVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THEIR SOUND ON CRACK THE SKYE….EXCEPT FOR THE LYRICS – about the many cliches held within several of the lyrics on Crack the Skye. However, after listening to the album a few more times to get a clearer context of the lyrics to the piece as a whole, I cleaned my shorts off and reconsidered libeling the best modern progressive metal band of the decade.

But Voegtlin? This guy ain’t takin no prisoners (pls disregard double negative)……my favorite gem of haterade enclosed within the article definitely has to be Voegtlin’s response to Baroness’ John Baizley’s claim that his band’s music is influenced by “fine art, cinema, and literature”:

[This is] as stiltedly silly as name-dropping higher mathematics, physics, or philosophy, when what the band really peddles is exactly the everything-and-nothing Hallmark heft so many claim to uncover in Pelican’s wordless, aimless songs. While Baizely’s predilection to hawk such High Times erudition makes him sound more puerile than he likely is, it’s difficult to imagine him honestly striving to disseminate meta-emotional discourse through music as transparently commercial as his band’s stoner-metal-meets-Ford-truck-jingle approach.

Yowza!!

More insightful dissin’ and the link to the actual article afterthejump.

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On Sunday night we caught the Beard Destroyer 2009 tour with Hull and Batillus (sadly for us, Salome didn’t play that date). It crushed even harder than we thought it would, so we asked our friend, Batillus skinsman Geoff Summers, to do a tour wrap-up for us. We hope you enjoy!

So, here I sit with a mild case of PTD (post-tour depression) writing up this wrap report for the so-called Beard Destroyer tour featuring Salome, Hull, and my band, Batillus. We had some good times, and we had some bad times. It rained. A lot. Everywhere we went. Fortunately, though, the good dwarfed the bad. Let’s recap…

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Our friends over at Crustcake tell us that there’s going to a Boris/Torche split a lil’ later this year:

The artwork you see above is from a post on Aaron Turner‘s blog, in which he talks about a new split 10″ between stoner/noise rock kings (and queen) Boris and down-tuned, doom-pop princes Torche. The artwork goes with the split, of course.

No word on a release date, but the album’ll come out here in the US on Hydra Head.

Holy shit, is that some cool artwork.

-AR

Last night I dragged myself out of the comfort of my air-conditioned home and into the stinking epicenter of trustafarian hipsterdom known as Williamsburg to attend the Torche / Harvey Milk show. While ultimately I had to cut out early to get some deserved rest and a reprieve from the stench of unwashed beardos, I was able to catch loud sets from enjoyable locals Pollution and the aforementioned gay rights icon / noise rock band. I was particularly pleased to get my grubby little hands on a copy of the limited 2xLP of Harvey Milk’s first, previously unreleased album.

According to the back of the record sleeve, this self-titled release was funded by an unnamed record label owner, who received the masters from these sessions but never did anything with them nor contacted the band ever again. Of particular note for noise rock fans is that these ten tracks were recorded by noneother than Bob Weston of the legendary Shellac! Hydra Head promises to put out a proper release of this lost Harvey Milk debut at some point, but for now the only place you’re going to find this is at the band’s remaining shows with Torche. In the meantime you can keep playing your worn out copy of Life…The Best Game In Town, which is now available on vinyl!

-GS

[Gary Suarez is counting the days. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

Even without guitarist Juan Montoya, Torche still kick ridiculous amounts of ass. Here’s the brand new video for the song “Healer” from their year-end-list-dominating 2008 release Meanderthal; all 2 minutes and 7 seconds of this song are furious, desert rock reminders of why you should obtain this excellent record by any means necessary if you haven’t done so already. That Torche are still promoting and touring the record well over a year after its release is a testament to how fucking solid it is. Catch them on tour now through August 5th in Canada and the U.S.

-VN

Well, not really… but that’s what the band’s new video, for “Across the Shields,” reminded me of. And apparently I’m not alone.

The video also reminds me of  the time that Vince and I shared a bag full of ‘shrooms in Central Park. But that’s a whole other story…

-AR

That I’m sitting here in the MetalSucks Mansion this snowy Monday morning has gotta be some kinda heavy metal miracle; as I type this, Anton OyVey, Rob Pasbani from Metal Injection, our friends from BITPOM.com, and a lot of other fine friends are still stranded in Atlanta due to the weather.

And honestly, there are worse towns in which to be stranded. To my shock, not only is the booze in Atlanta shockingly cheap, not only is the purp somehow completely fucking magical, but the city is about as chill as you could hope for. I kinda miss it already.

But enough wistful reminiscing. After the jump, get my thoughts on some of the best bands of Saturday’s totally excellent Scion Rock Fest!

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Torche’s a.d.d.-ish Meanderthal did not make any of our top ten lists this year (although Vince did give them a leel shout-out), but they certainly deserve a bit o’ New Year’s love…their full, stony, harmony-heavy sound ain’t particularly original, but with each album they have definitely upped the ante and come that much closer to being supremely awesome.

Alas, me shan’t be puffin’ at the moment, but by all means you oughtta…

TORCHE – “Grenades”, from Meanderthal (2008)

TORCHE - “Amnesian”, from Meanderthal (2008)

-KW

2008 has been a fucking great year for metal, and in due time — Monday, Dec. 15, to be exact — Axl, myself and the rest of the writers of MetalSucks will all release our Top 10 year-end lists so you can incessantly argue over which great album was left off or tell us we’re assholes for ranking a certain album higher than it should’ve been.

But for now, ya’ll can argue about something else: here’s my personal short/working list for said year-end list containing all of my favorite metal releases from this year as well as a few that aren’t likely to make my own list but will surely be appearing on others’. Feel free to pipe in with your thoughts or to notify us of any egregious omissions before we put together our final, ordered lists. Regardless, it is going to be really fucking hard to pick just 10 of these and put them in order of awesomeness.

And, my favorite metal records of 2008 in no particular order are…

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Now that you’ve all come down from the Death Magnetic food coma, perhaps you’d be interested in reading about something other than the latest output from four millionaires. Back away from the ledge, you pimply faced virgins, because it’s time for your noise news.

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2008 isn’t even half over yet and I already know it’s going to be tough picking my top 10 favorite metal albums of the year. So far there have already been a bunch of excellent releases that could be top 10 contenders:

• Protest the Hero – Fortress
• Torche – Meanderthal
• Arsis – We are the Nightmare
• Textures – Silhouettes
• Scar Symmetry – Holographic Universe
• Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1
• Disturbed – Indestructible

PSYCH! But seriously folks, the first six in the list are the real deal.

I’m hoping for a slow second half of the year so I don’t have to make any hard choices. Actually, not. Keep ‘em comin’.

-VN

Torche’s Meanderthal is a fine, fine album — thunderous, downtuned, droney honky, mid-range guitars combine with poppy melodies and a giant bong of your dealer’s best to create an album that stands as one of the more interesting and engaging metal albums of 2008. Meanderthal perfectly melds the aesthetic of the Melvins, the drive and riffage of Queens of the Stone Age and the stoner melodies of Baroness into a pop-melody cocktail that just works. There’s a hint of ’90s alterna-grunge influence too, though I can’t quite put a finger on it — think the heavier moments of Mellon Collie-era Smashing Pumpkins tuned down a couple of steps and a little rougher around the edges. The epic “Grenades” and triumphant “Across the Shields” are standouts, in turn rocking, crushing and eloquent. “Sundown” and “Without a Sound” show that the band can plod sludgingly with the best of ‘em while “Speed of the Nail” and “Healer” rock out with their cocks out. Shimmering guitars and rhythmic shifts show their faces occasionally but only for a moment before the rocking commences. The weakest link by far are Steve Brooks’ gruff vocals which come off as unrefined and uninteresting, ultimately at odds with the rest of the music. But no matter, Torche as a whole are so good that Meanderthal is sure to be one of those underground phenoms that people will talk about for years to come.

-VN

(four out of five horns)

Meanderthal is out now on HydraHead Records [Buy it Here]. They are on tour in the U.S. throughout May with The Sword and June with Boris.

[Torche on MySpace]