As a band who have split and reformed more frequently than they’ve released albums, even founder member Steve Brooks must’ve been erm... floored at the rapturous reception his Torche precursors received when they reconvened in 2010. So exponentially had their fanbase grown by then, it was enough to convince Steve to start writing new material.
There’s no escaping the sonic parallels between Floor and Torche, largely thanks to Steve’s canny ear for sweeping, enlivening vocal melodies and a more than liberal use of bowel-haemorrhaging brown-notes, but there was always something more ethereal and stripped back about Floor’s approach.
Largely thanks to some typically outstanding production work from Kurt Ballou, Oblation captures their sludgy melancholy perfectly. Like the In Return EP wrapped in 80s pop sensibilities, the likes of the title track or the eight-minute Sign Of Aeth might be like being slowly bludgeoned in the chest at the top of a mountain, but it’s the comparatively subtler tracks such as the stuttering Homecomings And Transitions that elevate them above being merely Torche Snr.
