Tora! Tora! Torrance!
Get Into It
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Tora! Tora! Torrance!
Get Into It
Militia Group, 2001
RiYL: Jawbox, Hot Snakes, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead |
No, this isn't At The Drive-In or ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead or any other group with gratuitous guitar layering, an unhealthy Far obsession, and overly strenuous moniker. Instead, Tora! attack the mainframe with something far too visceral for mainstream comfort.
Ryan Wahlberg meanders around the frets recklessly and bends his gristle-thick bass strings with authority. Drummer Jesse Panzer effortlessly jumps in and out of meter like a horsefly finding purchase on a rhino's rump. Guitarist Jason Peterson doesn't reinvent the tandem guitar (overdub?) wheel, but adds new wrinkles and somehow modifies the old components, delicately picking high notes and furtively panning left and right, in and out of each speaker.
Either the next underground music hero or the next smack-whipped back alley vagrant, Koenigs never fails to titillate, providing the true highlight of Get Into It. His shrill, purposefully monotone (I hope) drawl is a truly fascinating feat, welding the plugged nose of the late Joey Ramone with the punchy jibes of the great Mike Patton. Koenigs' lyrics, like his voice inflection, drip with pouty, snotty goodness straight from the heart (and sinuses). No typical "girl meets boy" prose here; he speaks of lies, sex, and all the other colors of the disgruntled rainbow.
On "My Turn In The Hot Seat," he moans about staying up all night on cigarettes and coffee, perhaps to study for an exam (or maybe he's enjoying the agitated trappings of a healthy meth binge). "The Sweet Sweet" finds the unquenchable frontman babbling, "I need a shot, stick it in my veins," in a manner that makes you wish all rock n' rollers were so shockingly forthright. He continues the unmitigated derision on the strangely titled "Hottest Pants," shouting, "We all know curiosity killed the cat," then subsequently complaining about a colleague who's got nine lives "and I've got only one."
The exact subject of his diatribes is never immediately apparent, but the mystery of it all only adds to the confusing, enthralling nature of the entire record. Simply put, TTT stumbled upon a devastating formula here by pasting seemingly unrelated sounds together, and ended up smacking of genius, like an eager toddler randomly constructing a faux Smithsonian out of Lincoln Logs.
GRANT PURDUM | Among the newest wave of NATN contributors, Grant Purdum bides his time at Washington State University.