Heaven’s Light Our Guide as Torpedoes hit their target with new album launch gig at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea
When your previous, 17-song, album was heralded as your masterpiece, where do you go from there?
If you’re Portsmouth’s gothic-punk maestros Torpedoes you go not one, but four bigger for album four. Heaven’s Light Our Guide is a sprawling 21-track, double disc (in old money) beast.
Principal songwriter Ray ‘Razor’ Fagan gives his take on the world we must all inhabit whether we like it or not. Lyrically the album focuses on some dark themes from the destruction of the planet and corruption to bereavement and historic tragedies.
And today (Saturday, July 20), the four-piece are launching it with a gig at The Wedgewood Rooms in Southsea.
Previous album The Black Museum came out in 2018, and as Razor reminds your writer: “The last time you interviewed me, you asked: ‘What do you do next after a double album?’ And I jokingly said we're going to do a triple album.
"This really was supposed to be a triple album, we had enough songs to do it. There's still other songs, and some of the others in the band were writing this time as well, so we might end up recording them for the next album.”
The album was recorded at Studio One28 in Portsmouth by Jon Callender.
"He's been very good, I think he's done a wonderful job with it,” says Razor. “Whack it on in the car and listen to it loud, it sounds great – you can hear everything on it.
"The album’s been getting quite a lot of good reviews – I think it's the best thing we've ever done, and I think a lot of people who know us will agree. The reviews have blown my head off. It's been worth it.
“If other people weren't into it, then we'd stop doing it. There's no point. As long as we've got ideas and good songs, we'll carry on.”
It also marks the recording debut of bassist Steve, aka, Shirley, who joined the band in 2019.
“He joined the band and then Covid hit – we were supposed to do a gig in Winchester, but it got cancelled the day before when we went into lockdown. Not many people will have seen him with us yet because we've not done that many gigs since then."
And this will be the band’s first hometown gig since they played a summer Bandstand gig back in 2021.
It's great to be back at The Wedge, we're really looking forward to it. And we’ve got some great bands on the bill with us. There's one or two people you might know and some new stuff as well..."
The launch gig will have a full evening of music with four other acts on the bill besides the headliners.
Rich Tamblyn, former guitarist of Portsmouth nearly-men Thirst, will open. Next up are Violent Heartbeat, the debut of scene legend Clair Wheeler’s new band, The Seed, and The Cherries.
Tickets £10. Doors 7.30pm. Go to wedgewood-rooms.co.uk.