Torchia – Ending Beginning

“Ending Beginning” is demo number 2 for Finnish melodic death metal band Torchia. Unlike their fellow countrymen, Insomnium, who are perhaps the leaders of the scene at the moment, Torchia largely avoids melodeath’s modern tendencies towards overly emotional, less chaotic music. Instead, the band comes from the school of groups like At The Gates who wrote music that caused absolute carnage, while still injecting melodic lead guitars. The title track sets the tone for this almost instantly, as the band launches into a high-speed thrashy riff. Later on in the track, the guitars shred and sweep along with perfect accuracy. About halfway into the song, things slow down for a short interlude, but the feeling remains quite different from the melancholic state that melodeath is currently obsessed with. It isn’t long before the band returns to their previous tempos to create a strong finish to the song. 

Though “Ending Beginning” is the best of the three tracks, the two that follow it are also solid. They’re not as good, but they display many of the same tactics: riff-driven, aggressive melodic death metal. Melodies come in the form of awesome harmonized sections (“My Land Shall Burn” has a great pounding example), as well as more technically dazzling moments. The band’s sound is propelled by a truly stellar production. This doesn’t sound like a demo, let alone one from a small band. In fact, it would be right at home alongside at Nuclear Blast or Century Media melodic death metal band (both in terms of production and quality). Nobody is fighting to be heard (bass included), and it doesn’t matter whether the guitars are playing on the lower strings or the higher ones, as it all sounds good. The most impressive thing about Torchia’s sound is that it is so professional. As a casual listener of this subgenre, if you had played this to me and told me it was Dark Tranquility or (old) In Flames, I would have believed you. That’s not to say Torchia apes those bands, but simply that their songwriting and sound is up to par with them.

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Highlight

"Ending Beginning"

Final Rating

4.0/5 or 80%. 

Written by Scott