Admission

The follow-up to the Sunshine State doom-poppers' stellar 2015 effort Restarter, Admission delivers pummeling delights and underscores Torche's reputation for striking a winning balance between might and brevity. Their fifth studio long-player, the 11-track set doesn't veer too far from the formula the group set out to perfect in 2005 with the release of their eponymous debut. Combining combustive beats and face-melting blasts of doom, sludge, and stoner metal-worthy riffs with soaring, shoegazey melodies, Admission feels both punitive and uplifting; it's a stentorian call to arms that uses the sonic template set forth by bands like Earth and Sunn 0))), but tempers the acrid smoke and hellfire with clarion blasts of icy blue water. Commencing with the one-two punch of "From Here" and "Submission" -- the former a short, controlled burst of damaging hail and the latter a hypnotic, yet no less propulsive two-chord workout -- Admission never really lets up. The crunchy, Zeppelin-esque "Slide" is a beast; the majestic title track deftly weaves elements of motorik post-punk and stadium-ready alt-rock into its sonorous embrace; and the widescreen closer, "Changes Come," suggests what Guided by Voices would have sounded like had Robert Pollard ingested as much Black Sabbath as he did the Beatles and the Who. Torche can get dirty as well, as evidenced by the gnarly, Alice in Chains-meets-Mastodon attack of "Extremes of Consciousness" and the scorching, aptly named "Inferno," but for the most part Admission administers seismic confections that vary in sweetness but always satisfy. ~ James Christopher Monger