Stop the Bleeding

Tourniquet will always have a special place in my heart. It was this band that got me into metal! But it wasn’t the Stop the Bleeding album that made my head bang to begin with! I had a hard time with this one, but have learned to appreciate it over time.

What was and still is a bit difficult for me to really appreciate, are the high-pitched King Diamond-ish vocals of Guy Ritter. Ugh, I do not like those at all! I prefer my thrash with yelling vocals like Araya, Cavalera or Hetfield, or in the case of later TQT albums – Gary Lenaire. On this album, Lenaire only does vocals on the now classic “Ark of Suffering”. When Ritter sings the Sabbath-inspired chorus, he does so with deeper vocals rather than the high-pitched ones. Most of the song is a tech thrash feast and an indication for where the band was headed the next couple of years.

Besides the more technical riffs of “Ark of Suffering”, the music is a rather strange blend of speed/thrash/neo-classic riffs with blistering solos through out the whole album. And boy, do these guys shred!! It is a total riff-o-rama, and although the guitar sound is a bit too much on the treble side, it still is a feast to consume! Especially the longer more epic songs like “Tears of Korah” and the closing track “Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride” have a progressive feel to them. Other songs like “Ready or Not”, “The Threshing Floor” and the fast “You Get What You Pray For” are pretty much straight forward and in your face. On “Swarming Spirits” and “Somnabulism” they slow down to a much more groovy tempo.

The bass sound on the album is also really good. It is rather up-front and bouncy and is a great addition to the sound. I often find the bass to be mixed to low on thrash albums, but this is not the case here. And on “Ready or Not” the guitar takes a step back here and there so the bass can really get some time of its own.

Now, one simply cannot write any review of a TQT album, and not mentioning drummer Ted Kirkpatrick. His drumming is absolutely flawless and super interesting to listen to. He is very technical and playful in his playing, and it is not just the fills, but odd and interesting beats and in-puts here and there. You really have to take time to just listen to the drumming. And not just on Stop the Bleeding, but on all the future releases from this amazing band. He is truly one of the best drummers of metal period!

Tourniquet debuted in 1990 and had a strong Christian profile. At the time, the 80’s had brought us some rather cheesy Christian heavy/glam bands (Stryper, Barren Cross, Bloodgood), but the early 90’s saw a big boom in some really heavy Christian bands (Deliverance, Believer, Vengeance Rising, Mortification), and Tourniquet was one of the pioneers of this period. Like most of the other bands of this period, their lyrics were a bold, Christian message, with tons of Bible references. Some of the lyrics do come of a bit cheesy (“Jesus came once to save you, turn away and He’s gonna slay you” from The Threshing Floor), but luckily this is the only TQT album where they have that late 80’s/early 90’s silliness in the texts. Other bands might not have moved fare away from it, but TQT took a huge step in a more modern direction on the next few albums.

Stop the Bleeding is a very important debut album, a unique Tourniquet album and a whirlwind of amazing drumming and guitar-riffs. Enjoy!

Great underrated thrash with good riffs and King Diamond-ish vocals. My favorite tracks here are "Tears of Korah" and "Swarming Spirits", but most every song here is really good except "You Get What You Pray For". "You Get What You Pray For” is a bit corny and sounds like it could've been intended as a commercial single for the album. There is a lot of great guitar riffing on this album, reminding me (ironically enough, since Tourniquet is a Christian band) of Mercyful Fate. I especially love all the riff changes in "The Test for Leprosy". "Tears of Korah" is an excellent epic metal tune, with an amazing high scream when he sings: "By words they you'll try, by words you'll .... DIE!!!!!". The main riffs in "Swarming Spirits" and also in "Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride" sound like they could've come from an early Cannibal Corpse album but this is really an anomaly.

Ted Kirkpatrick is in the upper echelon of thrash drummers for great chops and excellent patterns that bring out the best in the songs he plays. I must say too that he also writes some of the most creative lyrics in I’ve ever seen in metal music.

I wish Tourniquet had stuck with this style or at least returned to it years later on a comeback album.

“Stop the Bleeding” might appeal to fans of Artillery "Terror Squad", Intruder "Psycho Savant", or Toxik "World Circus".

I subtracted a few points over a few issues. First of all, let me be clear that I don't believe any album is perfect. I believe there is always room for improvement for musicians to strive for. My rating reflects that belief. The vocals really could’ve been stronger on this release and the album could’ve benefitted from some emotive guitar solos. These points are relatively minor however considering the number of things “Stop the Bleeding” does well, and I consider this album to be a gem of underground metal.

"Stop the Bleeding" was remastered and reissued in 2001 with live & demo tracks and shouldn’t be too hard to find.

There is a almost contradictory way about “christian” metal, a sub-genre for disambiguation sake. I have never been one to get into the extremes of what genre’s have become today, to me it is simply metal, death/black metal, thrash and grindcore. Those are the subtle most reflective genre’s that give you enough point of reference as to what any one particular band sounds like. The sense in putting your religious ideals as part of the genre is one of the most nonsensical things I have ever heard of. If every band was to categorize their bands with religious preference/metal style, it would be a boringly terrible way to find bands.

To me I have no bias in regards to religious, political orientation etc. If it sounds good I will listen to it. I do not believe that Beelzebub is involved in metal music, I do on the other hand believe that there is a certain creative blitz surrounding once taboo topics such as satanism. Nowadays you can call your band “Satan worshiping cunts from the clitoris in the womb of filth”, and most metal/nonmetal listening people wouldn’t blink an eye; it has become something of a more satirical/funny. It would be contradictory of me, to not admit my own fascination and involvement in the dark side, I mean just look at my rating system. It is all art and entertaining lore to me.

In the case of Tourniquet a speed/thrash metal band, that should be rightfully called one of the founding pioneers of thrash metal. Inspiring they are, they just just didn’t involve themselves in the taboo nature of earlier extreme metal bands, and opted to include lyrical content that is christian inspired. Because of the cut and dry; cookie cutter criteria for creating a metal band, the first on the list would be: “act as evil as possible”. I know some of the tracks on this album can be terribly distracting and almost borderline the “cheese” (reference Stryper) factor. I think they could have easily portrayed a positive image without involving too much their religious beliefs. But then they wouldn’t be true spreaders of the word of god! can I get a glooooray!

With Tourniquet they put out an album musically that is way ahead of its time. Even bands today cannot emulate this sound. Their creativity in vocals are off the wall, standard fare semi-gruff sounding to an insanely high pitched falsetto (somewhat like Mercyful Fate/King Diamond) without warning. Excellent leads, inspired solos, and insanely creative drumming by Kirkpatrick, the bass takes a backseat in the production, with the exception of Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride, as with most bands. Creatively inspired, and an almost impossible reality this was actually released in 1990.

Highly recommended, I think this and Psycho Surgery are the choice gems from their discography. If you find yourself “too evil” to tolerate the lyrics, than by all means accept your ignorance and remain in a archetypal social degenerate. This is greatly done Metal, and is too good to be slept on.

Before I end this I think it’s worth mentioning the guest vocals of Roger Martinez a now converted satanist. Apparently he got butt hurt a way back and is now scarily evil, and taking himself and life a little too serious. According to credible sources (cough, wikipedia, cough) Roger was credited as co-producer who was clueless in producing albums, but credited only because of his popularity in the christian circles of extreme metal music.

If I wasn’t descriptive enough on the music aspect, I definitely encourage you to check out this album, as I believe it a pivotal piece in the history of metal music.

https://devoutcraziness.com

My first taste of Tourniquet was MTV, There was a music video made to "The ark of suffering" which i remember watching. Well, What we have here is pretty strange stuff. This is very respectable speed metal mixed with some good song writing. The riffs are pummeling and really heavy. The Vocalist spreads across the lyrics in a similar fashion to Tom Araya did in some of his albums.

Take the lyrics of "The ark of suffering". This is what those PETA guys should be using to beat up anybody who kills animals. The lyrics are very direct and are actually very well written. This song has some crazy dual guitar soloing which is some of the best solos I've heard. Then there is the breakdown which is similar to many of slayer's stuff. "Tears of korah" has some really good drumming and the drummer gives a very competent performance. This song is pretty high on the riff count with many changes in pace. A very interesting song.

These guys even sound like slayer live. Try watching a live version of "Ark of suffering" on youtube or something. The vocalist describes evil much in a similar vein to what tom araya did in "Angel of death". The humans are replaced with animals. The rest of the album is pretty much speed metal songs which are more vocals oriented rather than high on the riff count. "You get what you pray for" has a catchy chorus and some interesting lyrics. Some of the solos are really epic, The solo of this song remind me of classic heavy metal bands of the 70's and the early 80's. "Harlot widow and virgin bride" has a very strange structure and has a haunting eerie feel, Almost as if they want us to repent for all our sins. These guys are also called a christian metal band and no wonder. The vocalist sounds like a cheaper version of Metal Church's singer.

The riffs sound razor sharp, The production values are impressive. The drummer did an excellent job. The bass is audible. This is an interesting album in many ways. There are three classic songs. The rest of the album isn't that good but not too bad. Overall, This isn't thrash, This is a mix of speed metal/heavy metal and some really memorable guitar solos. This isn't a must have but you should download the music video for "Ark of suffering", You got some sick stuff in that video, The music video is awesome and sick.

There are some things yet to be mentioned about this album. First one: this is clearly not thrash. The thrash movement which began in Europe was more aggressive, faster, rawer and definitely more violent. This album has, by all means, the influence of the speed metal wave from America (in other words: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, etc). Perhaps the thrash parts can be heard on some of the fastest yet technical parts ala Sodom, but as a thrash album itself, I disagree completely. Thrash cuts can be found on the second half of Pathogenic Occular Dissonance or on Psycho Surgery’s title track.

That the vocals are the flaw of the album? Humm, that makes me think that if so, then King Diamond’s falsetto would be a mess too, since the ones performed here are very similar. Does that also mean that Toxik’s ‘World Circus’ falsetto prowess is also annoying? I hardly think so. I am a sucker for this vocal style and when I found out that this was the case with the band’s debut I had to get it immediately. This is pure entertainment and since I love King Diamond’s vocal style I do not have any problems with this either. I still do not get why people keep shooting at Ritter’s vocal style. Actually, he performs the shouts perfectly and by the way, they are very difficult to perform. He has a very educated voice (which does not mean he is an absolute killer singer). If he weren’t so, Fabio Dozzo and/or Axel Rose would be some suckers too. And even they have their flaws on their voices performance some times.

Pointing out the songs would be useless since the other guys already did that. It is important to mention though that some of the songs have this Sodom ‘Agent Orange’ tendency to transpose very fast parts and yet mid tempo rhythm parts (take Ready or Not, The Test for Leprosy). I’d dare to say that the most consistent song here is Ark of Suffering, with its animal abuse lyrical content (it made me think as well) and the outstanding guitar solos. Not to mention the middle part where Ted does these un-decodable and un-decipherable drum patters (I have some drumming knowledge so you can imagine I have tried this hundreds of times). Ballad-esque (like Home Sanitarium) is found in ‘Tears of Korah’ with pretty much the same structure and its awesome crescendo. The instrumental ‘Whitewashed tomb’ reminds me of ‘The callof Ktulu’ with its pretty solid music flow and structure. This is a very good instrumental. Another solid track is ‘The Threshing floor’ with its speed metal killer riff (ala Metallica just in case it sounds vey similar). The obvious (as pointed before) standout track is ‘Harlot Widow and the virgin Bride’ because of the many riffs, killer solos, tempo changes, vocal performance, I mean everything.

With this recording you can still listen to some naiveness in the riffs and the song writing but as any good reviewer would notice, they just got the touch. This is indeed an awesome recording and the vocals are not that bad (although the middle range is what actually bothers me) but it does not affect the entire flow of the album. This is indeed, for me more entertaining than Psycho Surgery with its doomy songs, rap-metal songs and boring songs so that is why it deserves, in my list, a higher score!

Every time someone puts together a list of the top thrash albums Stop the Bleeding seams to always get left out. I don’t know if it’s because they are Christian or that this album came out during the decline of thrash. Anyways this is Tourniquet’s godly debut excuse my pun, released in 1990 when thrash was either dying or completely changing its style. Stop the Bleeding fell more into the lines of a straight forward thrasher with some technical, and groove metal parts.

Stop the bleeding is Tourniquet’s crowning achievement in my opinion containing their most entertaining, most thrashy, and most cohesive songwriting. The album can be placed in three categories mid tempo thrashers, all out thrashers, and the more extended epic thrashers. Stop the Bleeding starts off with The test for Leprosy which starts off with a more mid tempo thrash riff slows down to kind of Pantera groove riff, then ends the song with a much faster riff and a killer solo. Most songs on Bleeding are similar in structure to the album opener, but the album has enough variety and new ideas to please any thrasher for the entire duration greatly enhancing the replay value. Finally Bleeding has some melodic factors for instance Tears of Korah starts off with thirty seconds of speed then slows down for an acoustic ballad type structure only to speed up on the second half of the song.

Tourniquet right from the start was a very skillful band with excellent songwriting skills which would improve over the next two albums. Guy Ritter’s vocals are the weakest point of this album he sound likes he is trying too hard to be King Diamond, he’s much better when he uses his lower range on Ark of Suffering the album high point. Ted Kirkpatrick is easily one of the best thrash drummers I have ever heard, he fills this album with great fills, leads, and excellent double-bass usage, and he would get even better after Stop the Bleeding. Finally Gary Lenaire is a great guitarist and he puts excellent leads, riffs, and solos in practically ever song on the album, plus he does a great job on the thrash yells on Ark of Suffering. I’m not sure if it was Gary or Ted who played the bass for this album or if it was Erik Mendez who was in Tourniquet at this time but seams to not get any credit for it, but it’s actually audible unlike most thrash albums.

Stop the Bleeding does have its downside mainly Guy Ritter’s annoying vocals, and the second half of the album is less fresh and is weaker. The best songs are The Test for Leprosy, Ark of Suffering, The Threshing Floor, and Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride another standout would be Ready or Not. I highly recommend any fan that loves Christian metal, or even the die-hard thrasher who wants another excellent thrash album to purchase this album.

-4 points Guy Ritter’s vocal performance
-2 points weaker second half of album

Never did I expect such an album from a Christian group. Musically, this album is incredible from start to finish. The only real "problem" with it is the fact that the vocals are generally lacking. The high screeches simply don't match the album, and are more of a niusance than anything else at times, with them being one of the few things from this album from being better. However, in the long run, they are hardly anything worth keeping you from giving this a listen.

Lyrically, it is a very impressive album. Some lines are bound to cause you to think about certain issues in a different light, such as an abortion reference in "Ark of Suffering" that reads: "You think it's alright to destroy God's creation/ They don't have a voice so who cares how we're treating them here/". The songwriting is very consistent, with Scripture references all over the place, should you go looking for them.

As far as individual songs are concerned, they vary plenty, preventing the feeling that you are listening to one large, overextended song. The riffs often match the mood very well, with impressive solos accompanying them. I can't recall any time where I got tired of listening to the songs, nor did I ever reach a point where I felt I was almost forcing myself to continue with songs. A few songs that stand out are "Tears of Korah," "Ark of Suffering," and "Harlot Widow and the Virgin Bride," with "Ark of Suffering" being my personal favorite.

This album is definitely worth finding for any Christians in search of good music. For secular "metalheads", if you want to simply look at this album for its musical qualities, you will not be disappointed.

Man this is fucking wierd! Tourniquet is a christian oriented band. Their lyrics are about christian themes, hell and God and the such! The musicianship, especially on this album, is actually pretty good! The riffs are thrashy, I mean PURE THRASH! I caught myself headbanging a couple of times. Some cool riffs to check out: The riff towards the end of Harlot Widox and the Virgin Bride, its the wedding song, but thrashed up! The Threshing Floor main riff is also good as well! Solo's are pretty fucking good, like Over Kill it has that thrashy speed that makes everything twice the original tempo. Drumming is cool, lots of double bass runs and slow then fast style stuff. You can even here the fucking bass clamp, like Over Kill's Year of Decay album. All the songs have great riffs solo's, everything! If you like christian lyrics then everything is going good. The only thing that is bad about this album! The vocals suck hard core Donkey Balls! On some songs his vocal range is so low, it sounds like Alice in Chains. Then sometimes he sounbs like Bob Seger, while most of the time he has a King Diamond scream going on! Isn't that ironic? Honestly if the vocalist didn't suck hard core this album would rule! One more thing: they have like these cool backround sounds, like for example the begining to You Get What You Pray For. If you are one of those people who can listen to the music and tone out the vocals if they suck, you can handle this album. If you can't, don't bother!