Search - Tourniquet :: Psycho Surgery

Progressive, thrashy, nice innovation

the eclectic extrovert | PA USA | 07/11/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Tourniquet deserves major credit for daring to break the Christian metal mold of modelling themselves after successful secular acts. (There are many other original bands recently, but such originality was less common a few years back). The technical musicianship here is unmistakable. Percussion is especially noteworthy, but the guitar work deserves mention as well. Styles and tempos are mixed frequently, and intelligently. One sees hints of jazz, classical guitar, and doom rock, but it's mostly energetic, slightly unorthodox (progressive) thrash.



There is a near-instrumental (some dubbing), and one song with a hip-hop vocal. Normally, this would strike me as forced and be a distraction, byt Tourniquet is smoothly eclectic enough to make it work here. And Broken Chromosomes shows splendid creativity as a song sung from the perspective of a person with Down's syndrome. The finale of this song definitely is triumphant, which marks a sharp contrast from the despairing tone of the song up that point. (They also toss in a dash of what sounds like disco at the end here, which does not detract from the "metalness" in the least, but actually adds punch at the end--if you hear it, you'll know what I mean.) Other lyrical themes include a domestic violence, a protest against animal experimentation (one of the doomiest songs Tourniquet has done), and a theological critique of numerous, what traditional Christians take to be pseudo-Christian "cults."



A possible drawback (though I adjusted) was the occasional Guns'and Roses, nasally kind of vocal, mixed with a vaguely Megadeth-ish barking. But while it isn't that good, it works because this band "fits" so many styles into what they are doing, that any one vocal style can be used without seeming out of place. If you focus on Christian metal, this is 5 stars--but any objective metalhead would acknowledge its merits, whether or not its style(s) is their own particular cup of tea. Throhghout, it is musically and thematically well-performed,diverse, and creative."