ABC Pick

Torche, Garbage Island, The Dumps

Friday, December 2, Caledonia Lounge

originally published November 30, 2005

Hopefully most readers who come here for music news are at least tangentially familiar with the genre that has come to be known as “stoner rock.” You know, that telltale combination of pummeling drums, house-rumbling bass, sludgy guitars, etc. Well, apparently there’s a new category known as “stoner pop” which I can only imagine means the same elements with at least a hint of melody.

Such is the description Miami, FL-based Torche posted on its label Robotic Empire’s website. While it’s true that there is a little truth to that description, Torche fits among the heaviest bands playing today. I can see all you non-believers smirking right now. Well, when the band blows your face off during its live show, I’ll be the one smirking. Let’s just say there was a reason it was appropriate for the group to open for Harvey Milk last time it blew through town.

The band has been touring off and on this year behind its debut album, cheekily named Self-Titled. Fans of this genre already know Torche to be in the same league, if not in a league above, such bands as Pelican and Isis.

The history of the band is fairly simple. Steve Brooks (guitar, vocals) and Juan Montoya (guitar) were graduates of cult-favorite Floor and formed Torche with drummer Rick Smith (ex-Tyranny of Shaw) and bassist Jon Nuñez, after some urging by fans to continue the work they started with Floor. Torche is clearly poised to eclipse, at least in terms of mass popularity, the legend of Floor and already has me declaring them the best thing to hit Miami since Wolfie Cohen opened his Collins Avenue delicatessen back in 1947. And I don’t mean that in a smart-ass way, because it’s true.

Gordon Lamb

Gordon Lamb

ABC Pick

Iron Hero, Tora Tora Tora, Emery Reel

Saturday, December 3, Caledonia Lounge

originally published November 30, 2005

There’s a sense of nostalgia built into modern rock, no matter where it originates in the cultural spectrum. This temporal fingerprint is less a point of criticism than it is a marker that in 10 or 20 years down the line will give rise to late-night infomercials selling 10-disc collections of post-9/11 bands who kept on rockin’ in the free world. They did it to the ‘70s and ‘80s, and even the ‘90s have been canonized in the pop lexicon with the advent of Dave FM and VH1’s “I Love the ‘90s.”

So how is an indie rock band born in 2004 to move forward in light of all this? Over the past year, Atlanta trio Tora Tora Tora has crafted stripped-down post-punk that places an emphasis on mood and texture over belligerence.

Made up of Gabe Cendoma (vocals, guitar), Wes McCart (drums) and Jamie Wolfcale (bass, vocals), Tora Tora Tora’s sound is easily likened to the gloomy ephemera of Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division and early New Order. But there’s more than simple romance with influences at work in the group’s writing. “We probably draw just as much influence from Iron Maiden,” Cendoma admits. “I’m somewhat embarrassed to say it, but I didn’t even know who Joy Division was until I met Wes and Jamie.”

Three songs posted on Tora Tora Tora’s MySpace.com page balance simple arrangements that tread wearily through minimal bass and guitar rhythms and sparse drums that mingle in long, sustained fugues of inward exploration.

The group was recently up in Athens to record material with Andy Baker for a 2006 release. “We spent a lot of time in our home studio over the past year, recording ourselves and figuring things out before we sought out Andy,” Cendoma adds.

Chad Radford

Chad Radford

ABC Pick

Sursie, Shakti Project, Goddess A-Go-Go

Saturday, December 3, 40 Watt Club

originally published November 30, 2005

Infectiously arresting from the first note, Sursie is a band that seems to penetrate your ears on a molecular level, getting you to dance by pulling your neurons in strange directions. It is as familiar and intrinsically human as a drum circle around a fire on a clear night, at once enticing and experimental enough to keep you guessing where the next shift will lead. Sursie is a meditation in the unification of polarity: simultaneously the bucket of water rousing you and the coma into which you are slipping. The group juxtaposes fun, break-beaty songs like the lively “Pow” with heavier, ever-descending songs like “So Real” with ease, seemingly equally acclimated to both sounds, and therefore both emotions.

Sursie began in 2000 when original members Star Scott and Shannon Sausser joined forces to create a studio-based project combining a lush, percussive funk soundscape with rich, immediate vocals that could add an element hitherto scarce in garden-variety drum’n’bass music. Despite the fact that Sursie was originally intended as a studio project (which is evident in the vocal layers and polished sound of its studio tracks), the live show is still very much alive. Kristina Spooner (ex-Ori) regularly joins the aforementioned duo on-stage with a mastery of bass guitar that, along with Sausser’s drumming, lends a rhythmic frame to the ethereal vocals and funked-up guitar chords. These three, who comprise the core of on-stage Sursie, are regularly joined by other musicians to flesh out the thick sound and imbue the music with flourishes of taste from other points on the map.

Shakti Project, a local international dance troupe, starts things promptly at 10 p.m. Then Sursie goes on, and late night dancing with Goddess A-Go-Go closes out the evening. All proceeds raised at tonight’s “shakedown” show go to Katrina Fund Through Athens Animal Health Center, a fund to benefit animal victims of Hurricane Katrina now in Athens.

David Commins

David Commins