Cough, cough, happy 4/20. Hopefully you’re not smoking seeds like I am. Let’s get into it so you can get into other “recreational activities.”
TORCHE release Harmonicraft, and this thing pecking kicks ass! Heavy rock riffage, with (gasp) a healthy dose of melody. This record should beaking turn the rock world on its boring tin ear. Gone mostly are the sludgy/doom passages, replaced with Steve Brooks’ strong vocals and excellent heavy harmoni-riffing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still VERY much the TORCHE sound. I really can’t squawk enough about how good this is; hopefully the push to Volcom will garner them a little more mainstream attention, and they deserve it. I was wondering about the move to the Volcom label, and after hearing this it makes perfect sense. Do yourself a favor and pick this up. 9 FUCKING PECKS.
Denver three-piece grind giants CATHETER come at us with their first full-length since 2005’s effort on Selfmadegod. Catheter’s pissed-off grind sound is captured well in these 17 tracks, and one sometimes wonders why this band isn’t a little more well-known. After the opening intro, the album kicks off with the dirge-y “Encapsulation” and never relents after that. The trademark noise and blasts are all here; one gets a little bored with the trade-off good cop/bad cop vocals, but hey, that’s just one opinion. This is a pretty cool record, furious and mean, like grind should be played. Southwest Doom Violence indeed. 7 FUCKING PECKS.
My old-school peck is MORGUE , from the Chicago and beyond area. Mixing a little thrash with very early death. Variation is the name of the game on their classic album Eroded Thoughts. One can hear obvious influences by Autopsy, Winter and Cianide.
