Thursday, January 14, 2010

Tourniquet - "Stop the Bleeding"


Tourniquet - Stop the Bleeding
1990/2001, Pathogenic

1. The Test For Leprosy
2. Ready or Not
3. Ark of Suffering
4. Tears of Korah
5. The Threshing Floor
6. You Get What You Pray For
7. Swarming Spirits
8. Whitewashed Tomb
9. Somnambulism
10. The Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride
Bonus Tracks:
11. Ark of Suffering (Live 2000)
12. The Test For Leprosy (Live 200)
13. Whitewashed Tomb (Demo)
14. Tears of Korah (Demo)
15. Ark of Suffering (Demo)
16. Concert Intro (1999)

Funny story: so I'd just gotten this on tape back in the day and my aunt and little cousin were in the car. "Go ahead, play your tape," my aunt said. "Um.... no, you won't like it." replied I with wisdom beyond my years. My aunt insisted. So reluctantly I put Stop the Bleeding in the tape deck and that cool chugging riff starts. Everything seems to be okay - no one's ears are bleeding. Then Guy Ritter starts singing. Faces are made. Tears flow. "Mommy, I'm scared!" says my little cousin. Out goes the tape. Then the ridicule. "I told you!" I said. "Yeah," says my aunt, "But I didn't know it was going to be like that!" Whatever.

I said all that to say this: Stop the Bleeding is just about as close to a metal masterpiece as you can get. Just about everything is perfect - perfect guitars, perfect drumming, perfect riffs, perfect hooks. It all comes together in a perfect storm of thrash, technical, and speed metal.

Useless Fact: My version is the reissue with the enhanced cover and extra tracks. Question: why did they put the concert intro after the live tracks? Also, who needs a concert intro?

3 comments:

  1. Man, that hilarious story about playing this in your aunt's car is classic. Ah, the power of Metal.

    I had this and could not get into it, mainly because of Guy Ritter's vocals. Every so often, he would do something that was so cartoony that I just couldn't take it. And that's a bummer, too, because it kept me from checking out subsequent releases.

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  2. I can't imagine why you would not include Microscopic View of a Telescopic Realm in your review. I own all of Tourniquet's work and I think that you are missing out on a gem. It is very thrashy in parts and it blends it with Jethro Tull'esque like sounds. It was produced by Bill Metoyer who produced Slayer. It is like a prog-thrash piece with well crafted lyrics in the same vein as their earlier works.

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  3. I had "Microscopic Realm" at some point and couldn't get into it. I've been planning on giving it another shot though.

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