***FOR JUST THE DIGITAL/STREAMING VERSION OF THIS ALBUM, PLEASE GO TO:
torpornoise.bandcamp.com/album/rhetoric-of-the-image
Of the many justly earned superlatives to have been used to describe Torpor’s music, there is perhaps one that rings most true; cathartic. There is something undeniably purgative and purifying deep at the heart of their crushing, heaving blend of noise, sludge, and post metal.
Formed in 2012, their 2015 debut ‘From Nothing Comes Everything’ was a mere hint of what was to come, a larval combination of hooky riffs, hardcore screams and more experimental dynamics – the only elements that would survive the seven years hence. Winnowing down to a three piece, something that would cripple lesser bands gave Torpor a more vital edge. 2016’s split with Bristol’s answer to Neurosis, Sonance, saw the band transformed into a more considered form – world-striding riffs and tectonic rhythms explored as a slow-burn over long form track lengths.
And then, we waited. Three long years passed as the trio threw themselves into the subterranean depths of the UK live heavy music scene, exploring the limits of their suffocating sound in venues that could barely contain the scopic weight. New tracks rose to the surface like scalding, viscid bubbles of tar, ideas hammered into shapes ever more towering.
And now, a rich reward – new album “Rhetoric of the Image”. From the chiming, labyrinthine melancholia and claustrophobic depths of ‘Benign Circle’ to the achingly slow unfurling and savage, lumbering swing of ‘Enigmatic Demand’, ending climactically with the achingly beautiful, hypnotic and unstoppably triumphant drive of ‘Mourning The Real’, all tied with a harrowing, guttural vocal lament. This is the sound of a band continuing to push themselves into ever higher sonic climbs; the trembling, swelling synths, spoken word poetics and clean vocal melodies of ‘Two Heads On Gold’ and ‘Mouths Full Of Water, Throats Full of Ice’ extending tendrils into lush, cinematic soundscapes, providing caesurae from the raging, bleak tempest of their heavier depths.
The Japanese art of Kintsukuroi sees craftspeople mending shattered pottery using precious metals, creating beauty out of the broken. Torpor’s shriving interweaving of brutality and ethereal beauty accomplishes both feats – it will destroy and restore. The exultant sound of a band in their prime arriving at their masterwork.
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"How three of them make this sound is hard to perceive; if I hadn't seen them flatten the crowd I was in recently, you'd have to presume editing wizardry. But no, Torpor are just this loud, with a sound as thick as concrete, a thrilling proposition however you behold them...
There has been a change since the debut, From Nothing Comes Everything, which for all its ferocious down-tuned riff thunder, had something spritely about it - glimpses of light or fun perhaps, where now there is none. Their direction to here was foreshadowed on the Sonance split, and now we have Rhetoric of the Image, a staggering achievement. In reviewing that debut I stated that Torpor had it in them to be one of the "true innovators in the scene". In a rare example of accurate foresight, I was right, and then some. This is album of the year potential, and places Torpor in the high reaches of not just our UK scene, but anywhere"
- ninehertz
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"The most striking thing about Rhetoric of the Image is not the primitive, harsh undertones of its execution, but the actually quite eloquent narrative Torpor weaves with tools of such brutality. The album’s five songs melt together like butter, almost to the point that you’ll lose track of which track you’re on — being “lost” in an album is something we’re all familiar with, and Rhetoric of the Image hides nothing about its actual intention to do just that. Torpor wants you to sink into their music, not just ingest it, and perhaps it’s only this way that the post-metal/sludge/doom crossover can actually work. The band’s atmospherics are superb, to say the least, and range from crystal-clear piercings of your mind to the abstract jet-engine roar that blanks your brain. Under that spell, Torpor then crushes the earth to absolute fucking dust, and all you can do is sit back and hear it all unfold."
- Invisible Oranges
released September 20, 2019
Jon Taylor - Guitar/Vocals
Lauren Mason - Bass/Vocals
Simon Mason - Drums/Vocals
TORPOR