TORTURE KILLER - Swarm!

10 songs
34:43 minutes
***** ***
Metal Blade

Bandpage

Torture Killer from Finland started out as a fun project during the spring of 2002 by covering songs from their two favourite bands Six Feet Under and Obituary. The band name was chosen after a track originally on the SFU album Maximum Violence. 18 months later, they released their first CD (For Maggots To Devour) under low budget conditions, with 50% own songs and 50% covers by SFU and Obituary.

In 2004, Torture Killer were contacted by Chris Barnes (SFU) because their band name caught his attention. As Torture Killer had problems finding a constant singer for their line-up, he offered to be the vocalist for their second album Swarm!. Torture Killer recorded the basic tracks in early 2005 and Chris Barnes did the vocals several months later in Florida.

Having Chris Barnes as a permanent singer, it's obvious that Torture Killer will get some attention by the death metal community and of course better media attention. The result isn't too bad as Torture Killer are quite capable musicians who know to play groove laden death metal with enough changes. With its fat riffs, cool melodies and a fair amount of solos, every death metal fan will have to like this album. Some tracks are quite simple like Obsessed With Homicide and Heading Towards The Butchery, but other ones have far more complex structures (Multiple Counts Of Murder, Cannibal Gluttony, A Violent Scene Of Death). And as the album is running only for a little more than half an hour, there's no risk of unnecessary repetition.

Overall the album is very old school, but unfortunately also too close to Six Feet Under. This is of course nearly impossible to avoid when Chris Barnes is doing the vocals and the production, but I don't see the point in a European version of Six Feet Under. It will never be possible for Torture Killer to get out of the shadow of their heroes.