REVIEW: TORPOR'S 'BLED DRY EP'

Title: Bled Dry EP

Artist: Torpor

Label: Self-Released

Year: 2012

We have featured Torpor, (pronounced tor·por /ˈtɔːpə/  as they have pointed out to us several times on air!), on several Friday Frenzy shows. They are a relatively new sludge/noise/post metal band hailing from London & Brighton UK. They have provided us with a exclusive little nugget of history regarding how they formed :

“I met Jon in March 2012. We'd been trying to put this band together for a couple of years but didn't meet anyone who understood what we wanted to create or who could tune down low enough before Jon! We played our first gig as an instrumental 3-piece in June, then met Nats after she replied to our online ad a few weeks later. Simon played me her last band down the phone while I was on holiday and I knew straight away that she would be awesome!”

Sure enough, ‘Bled Dry EP’ has the energy of a new band entwined within the music. The general  sound of the release isn’t particularly mad-experimental as they assure us the next release will be;

” The EP was recorded live at our rehearsal studio in a couple of hours by Paul Andrew (Guerrilla Studio). We wanted it to sound as raw, live and heavy as possible. We're hoping to release another EP in the spring/summer, and it will be a lot darker and more experimental than Bled Dry. That was our pop record in comparison!”

…but this band are playing a niche sound which is not being explored by the countless London sludge bands around. Two of the members of Torpor are female, which unfortunately is still unusual within metal as a whole, some groups even get lumped into the genre of ‘female fronted metal’ just because of the gender of its members, but don’t expect sympathetic operatic Nightwishy melodies from vocalist Nats Spada, the screams (especially on track ‘blackend lungs’), are unearthy and unholy and put many male vocalists to shame.

This album is full of melody, be it downtuned, sludgy and covered in mud, title track ‘Bled dry’ is a slow, sludgy tune with almost a Deftones vibe about it, but with more dissonance. The vocals in this song are closer to Carcass than Chino Moreno, and they give it an almost tribal feel. Track two ‘Ashes’ drudges along until a single slyable chant takes the main focus of the music, I imagine that this live is killer.

I'm not sure if ‘blackened lungs’ is an anti-smoking song, but it certainly made me feel very dark while smoking a cigarette listening to it! The slow, punishing outro is enough to make anyone think twice about lighting up!!

‘Anchors’ the final track, has a stronger Deftones vibe than before, (I think it might be the drumming), with tinges of a hardcore influence, it chugs along at a perfect speed, and the master fade towards the end of the track and EP leaves us wanting more.

Please give us more, Torpor!

Listen to Bled Dry Here:

87/100

-SV