Torche, Dredg at Emo's [Saturday]

And here they come, one of the very few modern rock bands capable of opening for death metal legends like Obituary while still receiving perfectly legitimate Foo Fighters comparisons. In fact it seems like Torche are at home with any band that can stack their amps as high as their own--they've toured with everyone from Jersey tech-metal fiends Dillinger Escape Plan to Glaswegian instrumental art rockers Mogwai, and they seem to fit both extremes of the rock landscape like a glove. Torche are just that good.

The answer boils down to simple dynamics. While bloggers far and wide have commented on how the Florida quartet sugars their blistering doom metal cadences with massive doses of melody, genre cross-pollination in 2009 will score you little more than yawns. But from our very first glimpse of Torche, when they opened for Dillinger Escape Plan way back in 2005 and very nearly stole the show, we knew we were going to be seeing a lot more of them. We were so right--nobody, barring maybe Led Zeppelin circa 1972, steals a DEP show. Torche play Emo's tomorrow night along with West Coast prog-rockers Dredg, themselves no slouches in the riff department, and Oakland CA's Judgement Day [sic], instrumental trash with violin shredding (!!).

Torche on MySpace
Dredg on MySpace