TOURNIQUET -

TOURNIQUET - WHERE MOTH AND RUST DESTROY - METAL BLADE
This reviewer is normally indifferent to whether a band is Satanic, Christian or collects stamps. What counts most is the music, the affinity to metal and the dollar value for the reader. When a band achieves that optimal combination, then a positive critique is due regardless of whether the band is Christian (Solitude Aeternus), Satanic (Marduk) or German (UDO).
Tourniquet is pitiful, conflicted and hypocritical. The American trio can sing of its imaginary friends (Luke, Matthew, Joel and others) all day long, but when the music is so rudimentary and the proto-thrash so bland the review will inevitably be negative. On the musical front, the band sounds like an under-developed Rage. Vocalist Luke Easter, in particular, comes across as America's answer to that band's singer, Peavey. The band delves into hard rock, thrash metal and a slow My Dying Bride medley, but rarely manages to sound impressive or exciting - a sad indictment for a band over a decade old.
The band's Christian message and rampant biblical quotations are especially hypocritical at this time. After all, Tourniquet's country just spent over $80 billion US bombing the Flintstones, yet the lyric sheet has the temerity to inform the reader that, "If you will set aside your pride, your arrogant facade, then you can enter into grace." Care to sing a song about the Republicrats plaguing America?
Given how this album will do absolutely nothing for a band this dismal, the trio should perhaps concentrate on something more constructive. As to why Metal Blade, a label with bands like Fleshcrawl, Callenish Circle and Amon Amarth on its roster, releases stuff like this, the answer probably lies somewhere in the vicinity of allegiance and nostalgia. - Ali "The Metallian"