The sheer amount of passionate bands in DIY communities all over the world is enough to fill thousands of our pages, and I can only wish I had enough to showcase them all here on IDIOTEQ. I have interviewed and featured hundreds of deeply involved artists to highlight their unique takes on various genres, styles and subjects in the ever growing art scene, and this band right here is not new to our pages. Wrocław, Poland basaed math / chaotic hardcore sculptors TORN SHORE tie Miller hunched over their desk, dipped their hands in a bucket of enraged leaven and proceeded to shape it into a fine, quality mixture that finds its fast pulse in a fusion of sounds akin to bands like CONVERGE or THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. This huge riff monster walks a line between a bunch of your favorite crushing hardcore records, includes a bunch of tricks and hooks that I find reshaping their inspirational source pieces and it’s really great to hear these guys moving forward effortlessly and almost instinctively. “Reduced” markss their triumph and sees them at their absolute best. Listen below and check out our exclusive inside-look into its content, creative process, and more, delivered directly by the band!
Premiered on January 16th via Decibel magazine, “Reduced“, the new crushing record from TORN SHORE is out now via Bandcamp or the band’s official store! TORN SHORE are: Przemek – vocals, Dawid – guitars, Piotrek – bass, Łukasz – drums.
Dawid: I came up with the title “Reduced”, because I though it referred really good to the writing process and a certain point in life as well. Everyone’s life. Torn Shore‘s writing process used to be pretty much predictable. I wrote riffs and together with Łukasz we used to make sketches of songs. Than 4 of us would work on the final shape of these jams. Łukasz and I both know each other perfectly when it comes to writing music. We just fuckin’ do it. I grab the guitar, he sits behind the drum set and we have 2 complete songs after 10minutes of playing. No shit, it really works like that. We feel so goddamn comfortable with each other playing that we feel we can play pretty much anything we like. It sounds cool but turns out to be a kingsize pain in the ass sometimes, because you want a song and not a freakin’ sound journey. You want a mad good chorus, and not a part which no one but us can play. When Przemek and Piotrek joined the writing process we already had like 6 or 7 songs. What they said completely changed the way we looked at it and completely changed our past writing habits. They said: „Comon guys. you REALLY need a reduction here… this is TOO MUCH”. I really liked the term “reduction” and started applying it to everything we were doing – we started with throwing most of the songs in the fuckin’ trash where they belonged. Trust me, they were 4/5minutes long baroquesqe cannonades of riffs, beats, pre-choruses, post-verses bullshit… just unlistenable crap that nobody could care about. Then I personally started applying the reduction term to my riffs. Seriously, 2 notes are really OK. You don’t need 5 of them, etc. Turned out much more fun, cool and heavy. As for the metaphorical side of the name „reduced”. I’m 34. We all come to a point in life when you realize that you are NOT going to be what you thought you were. You’ re not going to live they way you planned. You are not going to feel the way you love to feel all the time. Your band is not going to be offered a sweet record or booking deal. You’re probably not going to buy a house in Italy, man… You will just keep on keeping on. Till you stop. That’s what I was trying to say with the album’s title.
As for the songs’ meaning – I think every jam has a story behind the lyrics. Przemek took a pretty unusual approach to the songs but this one is a question for him only. I really feel connected with the song “No content”, to which, it seems, Przemek wrote the lyrics especially for me. I find it pretty special. Thanks, bruv.
Piotrek: For me, personally, the title „Reduced” referred to more or less similar things Dawid mentioned. First, there was the writing process. It’s always divided into “two mind sets” (Dave + Luc vs. Przemek and me). When some of the songs were ready, my first thought was “this is nice BUT soooooooo boring to listen to. I insisted on making the songs shorter, more powerful, more chaotic and more fun to play. None of us wanted them to be „Lifeburner” 2.0 ;) Mentally, „reduced” for me is a term referring to the “future” of this band. I just reduced my high hopes. I want to enjoy being where I am with those dudes, no matter what, give 100% of me and expect not much as the reality shows it’s harder to gain recognition than we all thought.
Przemek: It’s really hard for me to write about these songs. I don’t have a habit of telling people what the song is about, what it means to me. I tried to understand how the rest of the guys felt while playig those songs and adjust a proper topic to our feeling of the whole song. In a way, some of this stuff is really personal, some songs are someone’s life stories, some are past conversations with close friends. Ok, let’s get into it.
Descendant:
Dawid: This is a proper rock song for me. All there is to it.
Przemek: Growing up surrounded by violence coming from those closest to you make you inherit their way of behaviour. You become the descendant of their aggression and you pour it on the other people around you.
Pete: Yes, all of them were laughing at the sound of my backing vocals here.
Łukasz: This song starts with a tremolo. I like it. Hi, mom!
Wrogn Friends:
Dawid: The oldest one on the album. You can tell that.
Łukasz: Some classic Torn Shore tune. Probably, it’s the last time we’re writing such baroque drum parts and silly riffs. Who in a world does need that? The answer: I do!
Przemek: Fuck, I really don’t want to do this one, it’s just too many things. Just showing one of the layers: people tend to seek validation from others and sometimes those who we want to impress can take advantage of us. We lock ourselves within the concept of friendship in unhealthy relationships for the sake of this validation. This song is about how one person can be pressured by the other and in the name of their friendship be manipulated into hurting other people.
Pete: Not much to add here. I think this one is really a killer live. Each song with a breakdown is a song for me :D
Set To Fail:
Dawid: This is 99% Piotrek’s song. Personal fav.
Pete: Yes, this is 99% my song and it’s my personal fav ;)))
Łukasz: Great tune ruined by a dumb-ass intro which everyone in the band seems to love, except for me. Nevertheless, it’s an instant icebreaker.
Przemek: This song is actually inspired by a conversation I had with Igor from The Dog. Just listen to the song, everything is already in there.
No Content:
Dawid: Yes, this is me in a nutshell, bull’s eye. A fun fact: the drum parts came first on this one. It was really awkward for me to write the riffs here which makes it super on point with the lyrics, haha.
Łukasz: What do you do when your bandmates can’t come up with the song cool enough? You do the job for them. I basically wrote the entire thing and directed the rest -Louder! -Faster! -Destroy the guitars! -Do the Spanish Fly! -Bring me the fries!
Przemek: Now you see! Don’t tell me stuff about yourself because I will turn it into an angry and loud song! Sometimes or maybe all the time you can feel being out of place in situations that occur. And that’s it. There’s nothing more to it. You either understand this feeling or you don’t. So try it, embrace it, and then you will know and not judge.
Pete: I hated this song. I hated the middle/drunk solo guitar part. I’m ok with it now and I think it’s in my top 5 from this album :)
Dust Up:
Dawid: I call it TS’s „hate to say I told you so”. Fun.
Łukasz: Basically, it started after I said: -we just can’t have a whole track with a beat like that guys – and these bastards liked it enought that it sticked. A fun fact: working title of this track was „Titty City” God knows why.
Przemek: Have you ever been in a fight? Have you been hit so hard that you started wondering how you actually got into that situation? If you ever had shit kicked out of you this one is dedicated to all those bruises.
Harmer:
Łukasz: One of the first songs written for the new album. Originally, we played it twice faster and somehow it was still twice longer. We trimmed it just enough.
Przemek: Long time ago there was a really hard situation that I never got to deal with properly. When I heard this song I knew it was the right time to say this story.
Pete: Really like this kind of songs, chaotic, and heavy at the same time.
Queen:
Łukasz: I seem to never play the D-beat in the right way… also can you hear the bass part? I hate it.
Pete: What a terrible drum part, we’re lucky we have such a great bass line here :D
Przemek: There always has to be a love song on every album. This is the one.
Lost Love:
Dawid: I hated it at first, now it’s one of my favs. Love the lyrics.
Łukasz: Can’t relate to the lyrics but the psychodelic guitar part could be an original soundtrack to my trips to the shitter.
Przemek: Dave came up with the title after I told him what I wanted this song to be about. You focus on pleasent things, wasting your energy on things that in the end will bring you only harm. This is „Lost Love”: you throwing yourself away.
Snake Oil:
Dawid: Przemek and I played this jam once some time ago. Freestyled it. We decided to play this little song in the Monochrome Studio’s bathroom and record it. Just one live take from the shitter – made it on the album.
Łukasz: This song sucks! There’s no drums in it!
Przemek: We came up with this song by accident. We decided to freestyle a bit with whole thing and in the end it managed to land on this album. For me it’s a very personal song. There are things in your life that you know you’ve done wrong. Even after a long time, when you have been forgiven by the ones you might have wronged, ultimately you will always beat yourself down with this thing you did. In a way of freeing yourself and truly moving forward you have to forgive yourself.
Pete: I think this is my least favorite track. Srsly :D for me that’s hate it or love it, you choose!
Earthwork:
Dawid: This one was absolutely reduced… from a 6 minute epic album ender to a pretty simple and focused jam. The newest one on the album. Really dig it. Super fun to play.
Łukasz: Slow jam for the ladies. Not.
Przemek: Peter is the one who sings anything on this track. So in a way this is a song about burning and tearing shit down. My parts are just me walking in Monochrom studio and screaming into the mic. I always wanted to do a song this way. Not to say a word, but used all I had that day to show how I feel about certain things.
Pete: Really enjoyable track to play, I think it will be a blast to play live!
Dear World:
Dawid: A small manifesto.
Przemek: This is our way of saying NO to everyone who says we have to be something we don’t want to be. We reject your way of life, your way of thinking, what you expect from us. We won’t bend under the pressure, we won’t bow before you.
Pete: Catch my bass when we’ll be playing this at our shows! Madness!
Łukasz: Well fuck me sideways and call me Sally – you made it this far? This is basically the best song we ever wrote in my opinion. I’m really proud of it. A fun fact: this is an alternated version of the song. It was partially improvised on the spot in the studio. I really like what Przemek did with the vocals here. He sounds like a ferocious hound that lost his shit. Especially the finale where he’s so fierce, it’s hard to distinguish the words. Anyways, I hope that listeners will reach this distant point in the track list.
