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Torpor From Nothing Comes Everything

Wed 25th March 2015


Pete

/incoming/torporfrom.jpgWhile I've largely missed Torpor - only a cursory listen to their demo and never seen live - it's hard not to have been drawn in by the favourable attention that has gravitated towards them recently, touting them as one of the more interesting of the new breed of UK doom. It's quickly clear why, their thick sludge sound mixing in clean vocals and downtuning to remind of Will Haven or even Deftones. It brings with it the Sacremento pair's dynamics making this anything but simply another nihilistic sludge album - and even more impressively it works incredibly well, giving a unique edge to Torpor enabling them to stand out from the crowd.

While the opening From This Time sets this impression - with the surprising juxtaposed influences instantly creating a reaction, it only gets better from there on. Surrender to the Light is a great example - a perfectly judged sludge mini masterpiece, it's landscape terraformed with artistic precision to take you on a journey through the aforementioned inputs, with hardcore and post metal sensibilities all referenced within a sludge scenery.

It's here that Torpor do their best to warm themselves to your blackened doom heart, as this is no supermarket own-brand off-the-shelf sub-Iron Monkey sludge, this is a particularly depressive and unholy brand. Ugly Primitive Man or Thou depths are mined, sinking the album into the murk and creating the huge contrasts between the dark and light - the head-nodding riff in As Waves Crash an illuminating and infectious example.

My only concern would be that it feels a little too controlled at times, fine tuned to the point where you yearn for outbursts of aggression that feel organic, cathartic and from the gut. Yet at the same time it is this measure of control that allows From Nothing Comes Everything it's grandiosity, and with all reports proclaiming Torpor's live attack a fearful and forceful proposition, it would be churlish to complain.

No, this review deserves to end on a high, Torpor have delivered on the hype and their promise. What's exciting is that you feel there's much more to come from them, that they can develop into true innovators in the scene for years to come. And for now, From Nothing Comes Everything is here, already testing the doom boundaries and thrilling at every turn.

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