A couple of track though, either don't quite fit the flow of the album or are a bit dull, such as "Solitary Traveler" and album closer "Looking On." The chillout tune of the album, "Solitary Traveler," changes the sonic scenery up with its dreamy vocals, sludge rock guitars and overall shoegazer/drone-like melodic bliss, but slows the pace of the album up a bit too much. Still, it's a pretty good tune—it just feels somewhat out of place on this album. On the other hand, "Looking On" is the only real bore on this release, as its slowly building guitar lines don't really go anywhere for much of its nearly six minutes in length.
If you like your hard rock and metal super heavy but catchy—like a heavy metal Guided By Voices or like "Stacked Actors" by Foo Fighters but even better—and sometimes a bit adventurous and proggy, this band and album will definitely appeal to you. And if you were ever a fan of Torche before, there's no reason to abandon this one-of-a-kind band now.
Harmonicraft doesn't break the ground that Meanderthal did, nor does it have to. It's just a strong track or two away from matching that record's five-star ferocity. In sum, it is a terrific follow-up, and as great a songwriter as Brooks is, the presence of a fresh face like (Montoya's replacement) Andrew Eistner on guitar and back-up harmony vocals no doubt had a profound influence on how consistently good it turned out to be. Clearly, this quartet, three full albums into its career, has been reinvigorated and proven it can make another army of tracks well worth digging.
Stream all of Harmonicraft now (with track-by-track commentary by bassist Jonathan Nunez) at Spin.com.
Article comments