Thursday, August 18, 2011

REVIEW: Touche Amore - Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me

This is just a short note to join the chorus of positive reactions to the new album by LA hardcore/screamo band Touche Amore, called Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me. Released in June by Deathwish, the label started and run by Jacob Bannon of Converge, it's an old-style 13 song, sub-30 minute slab of loud.

After just a couple of times through, though, the loud starts to reveal its contours and colors as being more than just three bar chords and a couple of cusswords. Listen to the terrific guitar sound achieved by Clayton Stevens and Nick Steinhardt on 'Home Away From Here' in this nicely produced video.



The rest of the band includes drummer Elliot Babin, bassist Tyler Kirby, and vocalist/songwriter Jeremy Bolm. Here's a video of 'Amends', from the new album, performed at a festival in the Czech Republic on 31 July. The sound quality's pretty rough, but it's always fun to watch a quality band get after it like this. In fact, this vid's worth a look for the stage diving alone. Stage diving is the very definition of lameness to begin with, and this crowd takes it to new heights of ridiculousness. Thankfully, the band is unfazed. Enjoy:



As I often point out, I'm not a big lyric guy, but Bolm's got a really nice ear and has loaded his songs with interesting lines and images that defy you to ignore them. Exhibit A is the album opener, denoted by a tilde mark that I can't do in html. Check it out.



In a feature on Alternative Press, Bolm says he wrote the song below during a time when he had the National in heavy rotation. See if you don't hear strains of 'Murder Me Rachael' when you click play. All right, me neither, but that doesn't mean this isn't a kickass song. Heck, they all are.




Touche Amore website

Deathwish Records website


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