Photo by Jimmy Hubbard
I’ve been putting this off for a long while now. Over the past year and a half that I’ve worked at the record store I’ve spent a lot of time with people whose musical tastes don’t overlap much with mine. As a result of this, I often spend a lot of time listening to albums that I might otherwise never have run into. For example, I listen to a lot of stoner/doom/regular metal when at work because my coworkers love it, whereas when I’m at home, I listen to … uh.. no metal. So it’s very weird for me to say this but, um, I really like the new Torche record.
MP3: Torche - Grenades
Believe it or not, Torche’s Meanderthal was actually suggested to me by a friend/coworker. I said that I was actually enjoying the Sword’s new album Gods of the Earth (which is sitting on my desk in my “to listen to” pile) and he suggested that I listen to Torche’s album, which he felt was a lot better. After that first listen, I started suggesting that we play Torche when we’d gotten through too many pop records. I knew my metal coworkers needed escape from the kind of music that we normally play, and this was a record that I could listen to without having my ears bleed. A few days later I realized that I wasn’t just asking for that reason any more — I legitimately wanted to hear it again. So now that I’ve soaked it up outside of work, I can say that I’m a fan. “Grenades” is a particular favorite of mine — it’s like Mastodon covering an Against Me! song.
First Boris, now Torche? What’s next?? Well I’ll give you a hint: I’m starting to really like Witch’s new album. I later found out that J. Mascis is Witch’s drummer, which made me feel a little less eclectic, but it’s still really good.
