Tag Archives: Torche

Some peo­ple are dis­ap­point­ed in Torche for record­ing an album that has crossover poten­tial. That might both­er me, too, if it were still pos­si­ble for met­al bands to crossover. To me, “Across the Shields” exem­pli­fies what makes Torche’s Mean­derthal such an excit­ing album: not only are they mak­ing catchy, hooky music, they’re still going for the jugu­lar. Every moment exults in tri­umph. With Mean­derthal, Torche blend inten­si­ty and pop sen­si­bil­i­ty that one rarely sees in met­al, and it’s more than a lit­tle refresh­ing after a few sol­id years of black met­al fetishism.