Dredg and Torche @ Neumos

Torche are a sonic powerhouse. They are a barrage of riffs and drums that never tire, that never stop completely dominating. They played several new tracks at Neumos last night, all of which built off the momentum and catchiness they first started harnessing on Meanderthal. Torche are remarkable because they’ve created an entirely unique blend of energy and melody. While performing, the band is all smiles, all good vibes. They are succeeding in what seems like an almost impossible endeavor — to make metal that is massively heavy without being angry. Unfortunately, the band had two things working against them last night — a somewhat sparse crowd and a PA that was constantly cutting out (I like to think they were so heavy it exploded), although that part was more of a bummer for the audience, not the band. Eventually I moved to the back of the room, hoping the rest of the PA speakers would compensate for the busted one, and it helped, although it ended the deep tissue massage that the low end of their cabs had been giving me. They closed with “Tarpit Carnivore,” complete with a bomb-note finale that sounded like a swarm of T-Rexes screaming at an erupting volcano. The drummer would jump in the air and come down on his drums with the weight of his whole body, again and again until eventually he was playing from his knees. Torche have some really, really nice gear. The explosions that they are capable of producing are staggering.

Dredg, however, sound like someone gave Maroon 5 a digital reverb pedal and then hurt their feelings real bad. Every song was in the same somber key, played just upbeat enough to not get too mopey, with an attractive and capable singer wailing one pile of clichés after another. Old tune or new, every track relied on this exact same formula. It felt like the band really dug the first song they ever wrote, which was about, like, introspective epiphanies and stuff, and every song henceforth has been a tribute to that original gem. Outside of my negative world, lots of people were singing along and soaking up the experience. The once sparse room was now almost completely packed, and unlike the small crowd earlier which was mostly dudes, there were now a lot of attractive young ladies in the crowd, and every one I noticed was totally digging on Dredg. At first I loathed and pitied this room of late-comers for missing the pure rock spectacle that was Torche, but not long into Dredg’s set I realized that most of them probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway. Obviously, these people came here to get emotional, not to get awesome. This was evident by the people standing up front who would do the hands-in-the-air-like-I’m-at-church-accepting-the-holy-spirit move whenever the singer would do anything particularly expressive. Dredg’s fans want to sing along and lightly sway, not get sonically pulverized. I can understand why Torche would want to go on tour with a major label band that has a strong following, but I can’t imagine they’re going to pull too many new fans out of Dredg’s camp. I make this assumption based on the fact that a) hardly any Dredg fans showed up for Torche’s set, and b) everyone I know who really likes Torche would have walked out on Dredg after no more than five minutes.

The fact that these two bands are embarking on an entire US tour together is baffling. Aspiring bands post comments on Dredg’s MySpace listing their influences as Dispatch, the Fray, and Michael Buble, hoping to draw over likeminded listeners. Torche sounds like motherfucking dinosaurs and volcanoes. I’m all for a mixed bill, but this combo just doesn’t make sense. In an effort to be fair I put up with Dredg for over a half an hour, but then they started up yet another slow, reverb-soaked pity party with the lyrics, “Let me be your sponge/I’ll absorb your sorrows,” and at that point my fill was utterly had.