Fun Fun Fun Fest Preview: Floor

Modernist pop-metal stoners Torche have been earning quite a bit of goodwill from long-haired metallers and shaggy hipsters alike, and for good reason--the Florida quartet's old-school approach to loud-and-proud Marshall riffing, which owes as much to Def Leppard as it does to its more esoteric influences, is downright populist. (See new collection Songs For Singles, now streaming on MySpace, for proof.)

Well, once upon a time, way back in the 1990s, Torche lead guitar-wrangler Steve Brooks founded another riff-centric band called Floor. As in, "nail you to one, with detuned guitars and ten-foot Marshall stacks." Floor inhabited a tenuous existence from 1992 to 2003, undergoing various lineup changes and touring only sporadically. (This was before bands could Twitter themselves into the collective subconscious.) Floor was an altogether much weirder band than Torche's streamlined rock projections; witness the roiling tempo changes and crushing feedback of "The Pulse" or the howling Harvey Milk-isms on "Loanin'." (The majority of the band's recorded output is collected on the new box set Below And Beyond - see below.)

Still, Brooks' pop sensibilities were firmly entrenched even at this early stage: "Scimitar" sounds like a transmission from an alternate 90s when radio rock sounded halfway decent. Anyway, Floor will play the Black Stage at Fun Fun Fun Fest this year. It's too bad Torche and Floor aren't both playing FFFFest 2010, but that's honestly more rock than any of us deserve. Also, it could have turned out to be like the part in Ghostbusters where they cross the streams and bring about the end of the world so in the end it's probably for the best.

Floor on MySpace
The Ridonkulous Below And Beyond Box Set