PRIMAL SCREAM

IN WHICH I AM GRANTED THE BLESSING OF SPEAKING TO JEREMY BOLM, FRONTMAN OF TOUCHÉ AMORÉ, ONE OF MY FAVOURITE BANDS OF ALL TIME.

- WORDS INDRAN PARAMASIVAM PHOTO BRYNER TAN

CONTINUOUS THUNDER - rolling, roiling, enveloping sound pounding with a heart that is pulsing with tectonic intensity. That is the power of Touché Amoré.

There are bands that soundtrack a moment, and there are bands that hold you through a lifetime. Touché Amoré, with its searing blend of vulnerability and ferocity, has always belonged to the latter. For me, that truth is intimate. In 2017, I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer, and the band's landmark record Stage Four— Jeremy Bolm's unflinching chronicle of his own mother's illness and passing—was there to cradle me in ways I am forever grateful for.

To speak with Bolm now is to understand that his scream is not just an expression of anguish, but of love. It is grief transfigured into survival, then into song. Even on the band's sixth and latest album, Spiral In A Straight Line, Touché Amoré remains in fantastic form, proving that catharsis and craft are not mutually exclusive, but mutually sustaining. What began as an interview quickly deepened into an exchange of kinship: two people bound by loss, reflecting on how music can heal in ways that defy the mind and heart.

Like so many others, I count your band among my all-time favourites, not just for the music, but for the way it has carried me through life. Do you ever grow weary of hearing that?