Themes of nature weave so easily into heavy music and on album number three Torpor have delved right into the autumnal process of Abscission. As trees and plants discard fruit and leaves as self preservation, so too Torpor withdrew to the Welsh countryside to soak in the wilderness and open their recording sessions to the night. The results are simply stunning. Abscission is bleak yet warm and so very very heavy while still having room for stunning post-metal, drone and spoken word. Everything Torpor has done before has been used as a base to push all the dynamics even further and the result is undoubtedly one of the year’s finest albums from the UK underground.
As well as embracing autumn in album cover, title and release date the music also matches that time of year when the temperature drops yet there is still a glinting glow of sun (although it’s burning more than usual this year but I had a theme and I am sticking to it!). The weight of doom and sludge that Torpor plays can be oppressive and menacing but there are also moments of post-metal which breaths through. Opener ‘Interior Gestures’ has an oppressive glacier of doom convulsing over the sturdy valley of post-metal and the balance is so spot on that neither is really crushed, just reshaped never to look the same again. Whilst getting tangled up in that dual the tension and friction slowly drifts into a thick fog as the ice melt water flows lyrically in spoken word stanzas. It is a tremendous start and the standard never drops.
Whilst some moments glisten with a wistful pessimism there are many other unsettlingly heavy moments. Aptly titled ‘As Shadow Follows Body’ scrapes the bottom of the ocean with its endless weight and bulking low end before resurfacing into soaring post-metal. ‘Carbon’ is the shortest and most caustic track here and offers a window into the isolated landscapes. Then when ‘Island of Abandonment’ stretches to nearly 11 minute length I don’t want the album to be over, and that’s it the only flaw I could find in this album – it finishes.
This album does everything perfectly and is testament to the talents of the three members, Rhetoric of the Image is a stunning album and Abscission feels even better. It is heavy yet flows, its dense yet never fully blocks out the light, there are moments of discomfort which embrace you and the contradictions never aggravate, they unite and the results had me looping song after song. The members should be lauded for leaving such a great mark in the annals of the UK music scene.
