ALBUM REVIEW: Torture Rack – Malefic Humiliation

Here I review the new album from another 20 Buck Spin artist, Torture Rack!

1. Festering Castration opens the album with fast, raw and brutal old school Death Metal chaos. No introduction, no glamour just attack. A really nice mix of fast riffs, blasting gutturals, blasting drums and catchy hooks followed by really groovy parts works beautifully. The static and nasty bass sounds awesome followed by blistering guitar shreds. While melodic is not the word, awesome certainly is.
2. Mace Face comes straight back in with the speed, assaulting the listener with more and more storming Death Metal, this is another release among many recently that bring an old school nostalgia to music really well. The production and tones are really nice and have such a fuzzy but malevolent sound. The song is a frantic piece of gore-fuelled glory.
3. Masked In Leeches blasts through more and more waves of fast-paced and raw noise. It sounds killer and has a slightly more technical feel, although in no way “pretty” it certainly feels more polished than the first 2 tracks and offers some variety into the album. The ending has a really cool Black Sabbath and general Doom vibe which is unexpected but really well executed and leads well into fast paced lead guitar ferocity.
4. Corpse Revenge utilises some really unpleasant scraping samples to begin and kicks into nice slow paced Death-Doom territory gorgeously. The underlying aggression of this song reaches a precipice with the built up drums and guitar solos, then going into more upbeat and very Swedish sounding Death Metal. It’s an awesome track with a dirty Death ‘n’ Roll feeling.
5. Slave To The Savage once again starts with sampling this time of chains and a dripping noise before going into a really nice groovy and filthy riff. It’s catchy but not in any way light. The song is like a relentless beating of the skull and pulses through more aggressive distorted instruments, blasting drums and guttural vocals than one could wish for, not forgetting more chaotic and speeding guitar solos.
6. Found In Feces kicks straight into the gory rampage that this album has so far prevailed to create. The ferocious and underlying contempt the musicians create is done very well. The songwriting is marvellous and the brutality is sheer and without compromise.
7. Lurking In The Undercroft has a more mixed tempo, and feels really chaotic. It promises no rest for the listener and gives a horrifically brilliant display of both structure and disorder. The riffs in this song are astoundingly brilliant and just inspire insanity.
8. Destined For Dogmeat hits like a freight train with more speed and raw old school Death Metal. It may not be as great with riffs, but it certainly loses no attack or momentum. The song is very low-register in terms of pitch and has a really muddy gruesome feeling to it.
9. Sweltering In Gore finishes the Death Metal opus with more mixed-tempo classic brutality, the grooviness is back and the listener for one last time is pummelled into oblivion by the distorted grotesqueries Torture Rack have to offer. A sick closing piece.

This album is another entirely old school Death Metal worshipping, relentless approach to music without regard for calm. The riffs are great and the whole album is just crazy aggressive. Phenomenal work. -8.5/10