Background Information
Some bands are best described as clones, bands that blend different types of metal genres or other musical genres. The results can be sometimes incredible and the sound can be a very unique sound, while some results are just plain horrid and the final product turns out to be clear case of plagiarism,
Torchbearer can be called as a ‘’clone’’ but this band is way more than that.
Torchbearer is an extreme-metal act from Sweden, these guys plays a blend between death and black-metal plus some splashes from thrash-metal. Brutal death-growls and sharp dark screaming are the vocal styles and their lyric messages are often referred to war and history (like World War 1) and death and disease.
Yersinia Pestis was their debut in 2004 which featured a very strong display of evil and dark death/thrash-metal act, that scenario has change in their new blasting achievement called
Warnaments where the material sounds like a mix between melodic death, black-metal and aggressive thrash.
The Crew
Pär Johansson is the vocalist of this mighty fine band, he is also backed up by one of the guitarists as well. The primary vocal styles are growls and screams; you can’t escape these vocals because they are present in almost every song. He does a good job though, both vocal styles are heard in dual performances which really lights up the songs but there are usually one style which is followed by another vocal style.
Christian Älvestam is the lead guitarist here and he really makes the best with his guitar. Blistering and skilfully played leads gives the songs extra flavour, making them interesting and more varied in the song patterns. You have fast, chaotic and melodic solos ringing out a little here and there; you can even notice some calm acoustics in one of the songs.
Patrik Gardberg is the rhythm guitarist, he delivers powerful and quite catchy riffs in most of the songs. You can notice that death-metal elements are clearly heard in the guitar work but here you can also hear some devastating thrash riffing as well. Anyway, the overall rhythm performance is played with great skill and good precision.
Mikael Degerman is the bassist here, probably the only member who doesn’t show off as much as the others. He remains in the halls of rhythm but he stands there with pride, his bass sounds a bit fuzzy but it creates a sturdy and quite massive sound alongside the guitars (the guitars are still quite overwhelming though).You can hear a few bass lines when no one else is playing but there are no standout performances from
Mikael.
Henrik Schönström is the heart of this band. Powerful and smashing drums are greatly displayed in this album; there are lots of double bass and intensive pounding. Many of the drum patterns perhaps have a lack of variety but these are still catchy and devastating patterns, I would say that the drums are typical extreme-thrash or brutal death.
Album Information
Yersinia Pestis (or translated it would be ‘’The Great Plague’’) had lyric themes based on this horrible plague,
Warnaments has another theme and that theme is based on the First World War. Sounds of battle and warfare are heard in a few songs, sonar beeps, men screaming and machine gun rattling are some of the sounds that you will encounter on this album. This album shows no mercy, there are nine songs and all of them are heavy hitters except for
The Stale Drownings which sounds like a symphonic song. There are violins alongside the band, sounds of war is heard in the background, men hollering, gun fire, explosions and other stuff that reminds you of the terrible state of war. Songs like
Dark Clouds Gathering,
Swift Turns Of War,
Where Night Is Total and
The Blunted Weapon are four songs that has some of the strongest thrash-metal elements which will allow you to perform some brutal head banging.
Last Line Of Defense,
Battlespawn and
Sealer Of Fates are the three songs I think has more elements of melodic and/or regular death-metal.
Burial Waters Deepsome Grave is probably the only track that really stands out, this song enters with a sad and melodic piano section and it ends the same way. The whole song feels more overwhelming than the other songs; it feels like the band made this song to honour the men who died at sea. Nearly every song is catchy heavy and unique, there might be some similarities among the guitar work and perhaps the song patterns but that doesn’t bother me and I think it wont bother you either, I think that all songs were great except for
The Stale Drowning.
My Conclusion
Torchbearer, this name alone sparked my interest once I saw it during a ‘’metal search’’ on the internet, the album cover of
Yersinia Pestis (which was this cloaked skeleton with a scythe) enforced my interest even more. But I never found this album and I stopped searching for it, then I suddenly saw a review and it was a
Torchbearer review!
Warnaments was the album title so I thought that this would be easy to find because this is extreme-metal and after a few tries I finally got my first
Torchbearer album. I was quite surprised when I got it because I had no idea of how this was going to sound like, after a few weeks the album had grown on me more than I thought was possible, every song was great, every song had its own character and the lyric themes of World War 1 made it different and more interesting compared to many other extreme-metal bands. I think that this is was an incredible album, everyone who loves or like the Scandinavian extreme-metal scene have to check this album out, people who like softer, calmer and lamer music will not find this as good music, I doubt that you will like this. Serious and ‘’experienced’’ metal fans should check this out and would probably enjoy this better than other musical fans.
Pros
+ Great mix of vocal work
+ Excellent guitar work (nothing highly complex or complicated but it is still good)
+ Great mix between death, thrash and newer styles of black-metal
+ Catchy, heavy, intensive and unique songs
+ Excellent overall music performance
Cons
- Nothing! Except for the track
The Stales Drownings
Recommended Songs (
My favourite songs)
-- Dark Clouds Gathering
-- Burial Waters Deepsome Grave
-- The Blunted Weapon
-- Battlespwan
This album will be given a steady and solid 4.5/5
Use ''Soulseek'', then you will definitely find it.
