review: Torpor

Torpor

Rhetoric of the Image

Truthseeker Music/Sludgelord Records/ Moment of Collapse Records/Smiths Food Group/Medusa Crush Recordings

20 September 2019

Torpor is slow heaviness with lots of quiet moments. Torpor is the medicine that doom fans can use for meditation, prayer, relaxation, clear the mind, or space out while doing some homework. Torpor tells the listener, “Friend, we are just going to growl along and play our music slowly, very slowly, and do our best to put to you in a mood of relaxation because you’ve had a long day at work/school and we’re here to help.” Torpor is heroes, essentially. Problem solvers. Got stress? Don’t like PE class? Call on Torpor. They basically say to the listener, “Friend, we don’t have melodies or pretty singing, and our music is ugly, but you are a doom fan and you know that heaviness is a beautiful thing. We’re going to keep it simple, keep it slow and you can ride with us and let’s find each other on the other side.”

That’s the agreement that the listener enters into with Torpor. Along the way, the band will seek to take you to spaces of void with extended segments of almost nothing going on, except for some sounds of imaginary intergalactic noises and the imagery soundtrack to traveling alongside a spaceship observing the moons, asteroids and rocks that populate the darkness of the cosmos. Then, they wake up the listener from those moments of stupor with slow-screamed vocals and heavy instrumentation, and we are back to the heaviness of slow chugging-grooving.

It is some 51 minutes of Torpor. We don’t have the lyrics so we don’t really know what the band is hollering about, but it’s not like you can understand the vocals, anyway. They could be talking about love, maybe they ain’t talking about love just like they told you before; maybe they are talking about yoga, space travel or how much they do not like their day jobs or about their opinions about the European Union or whatever. You will find out when you purchase your newest addition to your doom chicken soup for the soul this September (they better give you the lyrics, right?). Go slow, go big, go to sleep. See you in the morning. Here’s a pillow and a blanket. torpornoise.bandcamp.com/album/rhetoric-of-the-image