The many moods of Torche

There are few bands that combine heavy riffs and irresistible hooks as brazenly and as effortlessly as Torche. Frontman Steve Brooks knows this. He’s seen more than his share of acts come up short in their quest for sugary sludge — a lofty goal that most bands fail to capture. “We play with so many bands where I’m like, ‘Good riff, man!’ Then the singer comes up and is like ‘wahhhhh,’” Brooks says, making a strangled, hissing sound. “They’re a good band and then the singer kind of ruins it. I mean, that could be said about our band, too.”

Hmm .... No. Brooks is a modest, self-deprecating guy, but even he can’t sell his own vocals as detrimental to Torche’s thunderous pop rock. In fact, the qualities of Brooks’ voice — clean, sturdy, soaring — are integral to the band’s heavy rock hooks. His singing is distinctive without being distracting, strong enough to rise above Torche’s dense roar, and drive melodies into the listener’s ear.

Indeed, Brooks’ vocals are a key factor in the band’s rise over the past several years, which has made Torche one of the most critically acclaimed and talked-about heavy bands around, and has heightened anticipation for the group’s new album, Restarter.

Torche established itself as king of the sludge-pop scene with its 2008 album Meanderthal, before expanding its territory with 2012’s breakthrough Harmonicraft. Released in February by Relapse Records, Restarter, is pure, wall-to-wall Torche, from the savage riffs of “Annihilation Affair” to the sea of glistening harmonies on “Bishop in Arms” to the title track, which settles into a deep, propulsive six-minute groove. Elsewhere, “Loose Men” and “Believe It” are hard-charging power-pop songs dipped in oppressive fuzz — they dazzle with heavy simplicity. “We just tried to keep it a little more simple,” Brooks says. “I think it was listening to artists like Gary Numan, Neu, and Can. Less is more, basically.”

Apart from Brooks, who lived in Atlanta in the mid ’90s and again from 2007 to 2013, but now lives in San Francisco, Torche features bassist Jonathan Nuñez, guitarist Andrew Elstner, and drummer Rick Smith. Together, the bandmates worked hard to not only vary their songwriting approach for Restarter, but also to let their collective mood guide the album’s overall vibe, which is noisier, slinkier, and generally slower than the group’s previous work, with production that makes even the catchiest tunes blare with anger. “There were a lot of frustrations with things happening around us,” Brooks says. “Not personally or anything, but stuff you read about. We just kind of vent on this record a little bit.”

Mind you, this is coming from a band whose previous album’s cover featured, in Brooks’ own words, a surreal cotton-candy land of “vomiting rainbow floating dragons.”

Torche has always done its own thing. With Restarter, that thing is darker, but it’s as colorful as ever.