Bin Liner records – 5th July 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
The band hailed by Louder Than War as ‘probably the Last Great Gothic Rock Band’ – Portsmouth based post-punk/goth band Torpedoes – return with their fourth album, Heaven’s Light Our Guide, six years after their previous outing, Black Museum (2018). To compensate for the time away, they’ve made it a twenty-track beast of a double-album, and when coupled with something of a transition in their sound towards something rather more keyboard-driven, it’s almost certainly their most ambitious release to date.
The album’s themes are pretty bleak, but no-one’s here for a party goth album, right? The press release is worth quoting for context: ‘Principal songwriter Ray (Razor) Fagan (Ex Red Letter Day) gives his take on the world we must all inhabit whether we like it or not. Lyrically the album focuses on largely dark themes from the destruction of the planet & corruption to bereavement and historic tragedies. Including a song inspired by a mass suicide in the town of Demmin, north of Berlin in May 1945. Over a thousand of Dremmin’s inhabitants, mostly women and children elected to commit suicide rather than face the advancing Russian troops….’
Hopefully, this sets the context, rather than torpedoing the mood – pun intended, of course.
Heaven’s Light Our Guide is by no means a concept album, or a work which focuses specifically on any one tone or theme, which would be difficult to sustain and likely difficult to listen to over such a duration: instead, the album is in many ways a pick ‘n’ mix from the smorgasbord of goth, in the way that The Cure’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me offers contrasting elements of light and dark. These contrasts do make for a work that feels like it pulls in different directions at times – not nearly as schizophrenic as Kiss Me, but certainly the product of a band on a voyage of discovery.
‘Somekindaheaven’ kicks things off with a quintessentially gothy bass groove, that foot-to-the-floor, four-four thudding bass, and while it’s draped in cold synths, the guitars rip in just shy of a couple of minutes into its expansive six. There are some nagging gothy guitar breaks, too, and it presents balance between introspective and anthemic.
‘End of the World Party’ is far from a knees-up, but it’s a dreamy, wistful Curesque slice of jangling, indie which definitely sits at the poppier end of the goth spectrum. It’s fitting, inasmuch as it was The Cure who really broadened the spectrum of what is generally recognised as ‘goth’ – a term I really do struggle with despite principally identifying as such myself. Then, as many of the songs on here are more 90s grunge than goth, as ‘Idiot’ evidences perfectly.
‘Blue Sky (In the Rain)’ sits somewhere between Dinosaur Jr and REM, and in its execution ends up sounding not unlike later Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. None of this is a criticism: it’s a solid tune, and Heaven’s Light Our Guide has plenty of them.
There is a strong leaning towards that mid-late 80s alternative sound as showcased by the likes of The Rose of Avalanche and IRS-era Salvation. The fact that the latter toured extensively with The Alarm does give some indication of the more commercial sound which had evolved by this time, and hints at the tone of Heaven’s Light Our Guide. In the main, this is a highly accessible set of songs. But then they chuck in some really hefty darker-hued cuts along the way: ‘Made of Stone’ comes on like The Mission in their early years, but heavier and more fiery, and it’s by no means the only stomper in this vein here. The grungy ‘Your Democracy’ certainly brings the riffs on one of the album’s most blatantly political songs, which goes a bit Metallica, too.
The title track is different again, a sweeping post-rock instrumental sweep that really mellows things down, and it’s clear that Torpedoes really want to demonstrate their range and musical skills here. Takings its title from a novel by Dostoyevsky, ‘Notes from the Underground’ is another gritty slice of sociopolitical critique, which contrasts with the altogether folkier acoustic-based ‘Fear of Human Design’.
Despite its length, Heaven’s Light Our Guide manages to hold the attention: it’s varied and interesting enough to do so, but not so diverse as to feel unfocussed or messy. Perhaps an even greater feat is that it doesn’t feel like there are any filler tracks or any which it would have been beneficial to cut.
AA
Aural Aggravation 