You have to love the sudden infusion of American D-beat in the last decade. For a genre that Americans tried for 20 years to ape,and never got quite right, there sure is a bunch of it now.
Most importantly, it's really solid D-beat. Torso hail from the Bay Area and feature members of PUNCH. They've been around for a little while now, and this marks their third release,following, early 2014's “Community Psychosis” and an earlier demo.
Musically this is as hard as it possibly needs to be, while not being so fast as to be lacking in hooks and catchiness. Good D-beat ought to be a bit catchy with good solid guitar drive that catches the interest, and a solid bass to compliment,TORSO is right where it needs to be here. Fast as hell, but not so fast as to be tuneless slop.
The vocals are high pitched but sharp and cutting to the bone, which in and of itself is a refreshing change. Nobody is really being directly aped here or copied, someone is just shredding out their vocal chords for your amusements. Lyrical topics include feminism,straight edge(D Beat Straight Edge?) and veganism.
This is just a crunchy brutal way to spend 20 minutes of your life. Brutal and over the top. Lots of hooks, lots of slamming,moshing goodness from one end to the other. It literally took me the same amount of time to listen to this bruiser of a record,as it took me to listen to it. And that ain't half bad.
-The Right Wrong Rev Paul