Swedish melodic extreme metal. I can remember when these guys held the whole world in their hands. In the mid to late nineties, you couldn’t move for talented Swedes running amok at the fretboard, conquering the metal world with weapons-grade melodies and sweeping arpeggios. It hasn’t really been that way in the last few years, strangled as the melodic death metal scene was by also-ran bands with more desire than talent.
Happy to report then that Torchbearer have produced a bit of a corker here on the quiet. It all starts with the kind of overblown casio-driven keyboard pomp that would make Cradle of Filth blush, but after that it’s all gravy, baby. Imagine if you will the harshness and strangely anti-tonal melodies of Dissection mirrored up with the flair for song writing expressed by personal favourites of the whole Swedish melodic death metal moment, Solar Dawn. With black metal guitar riffing of the more well developed variety (no one man bedroom band antics here, thank fuck) sprinting headlong into the melodies that have the good sense to be attractive before sickeningly sweet, this is good tasty stuff.
Actually, given the pedigree of the band, it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the music here is so well developed. It’s a real “who’s who” of accomplished musicians, coming as they do from Solar Dawn, Scar Symmetry, Demiurg etc. Thus when the guitar solo begins to absolutely rip it up on “Over Takao River”, you just know that the following tracks are also going to blow you away. Here and there the electronic noises poke their bloody nose in where they aren’t wanted or needed, proving to be an unwelcome distraction from the very serious business of allowing the irregular guitar approach to produce the tone and atmosphere, but this is but a minor irritation. As a celebration of all the things that Swedish bands used to do well, this is about as good as it gets. When “Severings” comes clattering out of the traps like the bastard offspring of Nodtveidt and Stromblad at the height of their powers, you’d best move out of the way or be run over.
Excellent stuff I fancy, and a contender for album of the year?
http://www.unmoored.com/torchbearer
Chris Davison
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