Torchbearer: The Roach Keeps Rolling

It’s an inescapable truth that the last couple of years have been pretty bleak for pretty much everyone, but few bands have been through the mill quite as much as TORCHBEARER. On top of what we’ll vaguely refer to as ‘everything’, the London-based four-piece have endured last-minute line-up changes, mental health struggles, and, most tragically of all, the loss of a loved one as a result of police brutality. They haven’t let any of this diminish their spirit though, with the band proudly self-releasing their debut full-length Solace this January. Building on the groundwork of their earlier EPs, it’s a record of chest-beating, pulse-raising, fist-clenching defiance, one whose weighty riffs are often matched by even weightier subject matter.

“Regardless of whatever obstacles we faced across the journey since 2016, we basically had this mantra of no matter what’s going to hit us, we’re just going to keep on rolling,” affirms bassist Mo Bashir. “There’s like an inside joke within the band where we say ‘the TB train keeps on rolling’ or ‘the roach keeps on rolling’ – because if you think about it the cockroach is going to be the only species that’s going to survive if a nuclear blast happens!”

Naturally, TORCHBEARER weren’t going to let the comparatively minor matter of a global pandemic knock them off their stride, instead keeping the train rolling by finding new ways of writing and working together. “We had to figure out how to do that online, which was cool,” explains guitarist Ollie Gould. “We spent a bit of cash on audio software and plugins, and just watched loads of YouTube stuff and taught ourselves how to use them… we literally figured out how to do it in lockdown and just kick it back and forth. The whole thing was written on WhatsApp – it was pretty wild!”

“That’s what Mo’s talking about,” he adds. “That joke around referring to ourselves as the cockroaches. For example, our drummer quit a week before a video, and I just called my mate and I was like ‘can you just stand in our video?’ and he was like ‘fuck it, alright’. After that, we were having a wrap beer and we were like ‘how did we get through that?’, and we all go ‘it’s the roach man!’”

Of course, one particular challenge of writing Solace remotely was the band’s inability to road-test the material as it were, but Gould and co. maintain that the live experience was still very much at the forefront of their minds when it came to the writing process. He elaborates: “Even though I was in a bedroom, I just had to look up from Pro Tools and imagine the show and think like ‘are people going to circle pit to this? They may be more likely to do that if I change it to this’. It was tricky, [but] the main thing we write for is the live experience.”

“It’s important for a band like us to do that,” adds vocalist Andy Mansell. “Kind of why we’re doing it is to play those shows, so if we were writing stuff that’s not gonna translate live we probably wouldn’t make the cut.”

Unsurprisingly, the results make for energetic, fired-up listening, with Solace striking a visceral balance between high-octane hardcore and hulking groove metal that often evokes the glory days of the early 00s. Mansell sums it up well, saying: “As vocalist I was all about KILLSWITCH and BLEEDING THROUGH and hardcore bands of that type, and I wanted to find guys who would support that and make our own version of that. But the cool thing about this band is that the other guys aren’t necessarily from that vibe. Particularly guitar wise, we’ve got a lot more of a rock kind of thing in there, and I think that separates us from a lot of other bands. We blend up the influences quite a lot.”

As mentioned, one thing that really adds to Solace’s weight is TORCHBEARER’s refusal to shy away from the pain of recent months. For Bashir, whose brother passed away after he was subjected to a police restraint in February 2021, such outspokenness is essential. He explains: “What’s happened is shocking and sad, and we’ve all kind of got this rough idea that it only happens in the US, but when it hits you in your home… that’s when you start to realise that the world’s messed up, and it’s not just me going through this experience. If we’re able to connect with people out there with similar issues or the same problems, then we’ll feel like we’ve done something here – you never know, we might be able to save some people’s lives.”

Despite the bleakness, TORCHBEARER are determined to find and provide their listeners with hope, or solace as the album’s title suggests, with Mansell summarising: “Catharsis was something that I was thinking about a lot as I wrote most of the lyrics… It’s kind of just digging into ourselves for the subject matter, putting it out there and not holding back. I think that experience is what brings you hope. If someone else can listen to this who is experiencing a mental health experience or the loss of someone dear to them, if they can find some solace in hearing about someone else who’s experienced that then that’s what we want to achieve.”

Solace is out now via self-release.

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