You have to love the sudden infusion of
American D-beat in the last decade. For a genre that Americans tried
for 20 years to ape,and never got quite right, there sure is a bunch
of it now.
Most importantly, it's really solid D-beat. Torso
hail from the Bay Area and feature members of PUNCH. They've been
around for a little while now, and this marks their third
release,following, early 2014's “Community Psychosis†and an
earlier demo.
Musically this is as hard as it possibly needs
to be, while not being so fast as to be lacking in hooks and
catchiness. Good D-beat ought to be a bit catchy with good solid
guitar drive that catches the interest, and a solid bass to
compliment,TORSO is right where it needs to be here. Fast as hell,
but not so fast as to be tuneless slop.
The vocals are high
pitched but sharp and cutting to the bone, which in and of itself is
a refreshing change. Nobody is really being directly aped here or
copied, someone is just shredding out their vocal chords for your
amusements. Lyrical topics include feminism,straight edge(D Beat
Straight Edge?) and veganism.
This is just a crunchy brutal
way to spend 20 minutes of your life. Brutal and over the top. Lots
of hooks, lots of slamming,moshing goodness from one end to the
other. It literally took me the same amount of time to listen to
this bruiser of a record,as it took me to listen to it. And that
ain't half bad.
-The Right Wrong Rev Paul