Torche's 2012 full-length Harmonicraft made a slew of year-end lists-including a few on this very site-and with good reason. Harmonicraft satisfied the need of every Torche fan that might love the band for different reasons, whether it's their pulverizing heaviness, their calculated catchiness or a combination of the two (NOTE: It's usually a combination). At the end of the year, one thing we could all agree on was that we should be listening to more Torche.

Hark! Here is more Torche. The band recently dropped a new two-song 7-inch titled Harmonslaught via their own Amnesian Records, distributed by No Idea. It's a fairly logical extension of what the band accomplished on the similarly named Harmonicraft, with all the positively meaty beats we've come to expect from them as fans. The A-side and title track resides on the lowest of low ends, with a reverberating bass line accounting for the bulk of its heaviness. The guitar tones in the chorus, if it could even be called a chorus, give the song a palpable sense of bleakness that may have been lost had this song appeared on Harmonicraft. That's an important distinction; it could just be the difference in format, but "Harmonslaught" arguably hits harder-much harder-than anything else in Torche's discography.

As its title might suggest, the B-side "Rock 'N' Roll Mantasy" is a little more fun and less powerful in its aesthetic. Here, Torche take their gleaming pop-metal sensibilities and throw out a lot of the crunch inherent in most of their work. It's a plodding track that, save Steve Brooks' omnipresent vocals and a fairly heavy midsection, is more Van Halen than High On Fire, though the confluence of those two names make a pretty solid device for explaining Torche's appeal.

The vinyl release of Harmonslaught was limited and is likely sold out now, but the band have made it available digitally for a measly two dollars. It's worth it.