When talking about a new band, foreign art film, or craft beer, indie kids are known for constantly attaching the dangling phrase “…you may not have heard of it” to the end of their story, with a certain air of snobbery in their voice. What should always be remembered, however, is that before TV On The Radio, there was Tesla, and before Beirut there was Black Sabbath.
I am talking about metal, the genre that truly started out in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s as music for weirdos and misfits. This is a unique unity that only fellow outcasts can share together, and is a unity that was definitely felt at the performance of the Miami, Florida bred stoner/sludge metal band Torche at the Rock and Roll Hotel last weekend.
Today, of course, metal has become streamlined in many ways and many genres, but bands like Torche still carry that truly heavy metal sound in the deep tonality of their music and in lead singer Steve Brooks’ deep vocals. The doom-like, stoner feel of their songs embrace an ideology of today that “legitimate” metal should lurk dark and low with that “bowels of hell” sort of feeling. But Torche’s songs also simultaneously harken back to day’s of metal’s past as they are played with a driving rhythm and Brooks integrates true singing and harmony into his vocals, not just monolithic groans and growls a la Cannibal Corpse or Burning Witch.
This makes their music more accessible to fans of any metal mindset, as was clear from the varied crowd at this show. Scrawny high school kids, cross-armed porkpie hat-wearing hardcore dudes and scraggly older guys clearly on their fourth or fifth drink all filled out the crowd.
On stage, Torche put on an enthusiastic and excessively sweaty performance. Venue security carefully showered audiences with bottled water to keep mosh pitters and wall standing fans alike cooled down as the band played well-known tracks like “UFO” from 2010’s Songs For Singles as well as “Triumph of Venus” and “Grenades” from their best known release, 2008’s Meanderthal.
Opening acts included fellow sludge acts from Seattle, Helms Alee and Big Business. As the opening three-piece, Helms Alee’s two female members alternated vocals with the only male member of their band for a trance-like sound that can rarely be done well with female vocals in the metal scene, and Big Business continued with their own powerful brand of long-haired stoner rock.
Both bands are now releasing music with Hydra Head Records, which is not only Torche’s label but that of prominent names in the post-metal scene such as Pelican and Isis. This shows that with such excellent live performances and revered record label backing, all three of these bands have potential to make great music. Maybe metal won’t always just be fore the misfits, after all.
