Review Summary: Cannibal Corpse returns with a solid Death Metal Album, yet "Torture" is only slightly above average when compared to the genre as a whole.
The world's most well known death metal band has just released their newest LP. For many fans their previous LP, "Evisceration Plague", was a bit of let down; being that "Kill" offered many new exciting technical components to the song writing department. I am proud to announce that this is a waaaay better than Evisceration Plague. For being a 12th release, "Torture" has truly shown that Cannibal Corpse can still write good music after all these years. The tracks found here actually sound like songs. The structure feels so much more natural, rather than older songs off "Evisceration Plague" showing a typical expected structure. Tracks like "Sarcophagic Frenzy" are very reminiscent of riffing styles found on "Kill". There are tons of blast beats and instances of groove that seem to take most of the spotlight on this track; groove being found in the area of, not only riffs, but tempo changes to odd structures. Even the solos are more refined. Many critics have accused Cannibal Corpse of just wanking out their solos with no apparent structure but “Sacrcophagic Frenzy” fuses a creative, structured sounding solo that fits the song's pace ever so well.
A while ago Alex Webster, bassist of CC, mentioned the bands ultimate goal was to become heavier and heavier. With the album opener "Demented Aggression", the heavy component is immediately present as no time is wasted in blasting it's listeners with double pass and furious palm muting "riffage". While these heavier components are very desirable in the genre of death metal, CC's approach seems to be slightly stagnant; needing more variation. Tracks like "Scourge of Iron" and "Encased in Concrete" take a while to build up, but when they do the reapings can be immense. In the middle of "Encased in Concrete" a sick techy palm muted death riff pattern kicks in, and with good compositional arrangements, it grows into something more.
Paul's drumming is as solid as ever but could use a bit more fills blended into his techy odd riff approaches. Tracks like "As Deep As the Knife Will Go" could be so much heavier if he worked fills into the blast beats, so that the heavier push would give more of an impact; as Corpsegrinder chants "AS DEEP AS THE KNIFE WILL GOOOOOOOOOOO"!!!!!!!!
Everyone is pretty much extremely curious if Torture has more techy break downs like "Kill" had in songs such as "Murder Worship" and "Make them Suffer". Well the answer is yes. "Intestinal Crank" shreds hard with blazing fast tremolos that builds up until the mid mark; all of the sudden this sick riff comes in with an odd timed pattern that just keeps progressing as my vagina oozes that white creamy stuff. The riff's keep a-ss fuking me until I die from the repeated torture of rape.
The fun doesn't stop there. While the thought of a strangulation chair may sound like an innovative tool to strap your dic-k down too, "The"- "Strangulation Chair" encompasses as much innovation as the term suggest. This song is extremely catchy. I could fuk 20 chicks to this song and never get bored. Basically it's one of those songs that you just never want to end, because it's so good. This is where Alex Webster truly shines; in fact I'd be willing to bet on it that he wrote the entire song himself. The level of creativity is the true highlight here but many of the other tracks on "Torture" fail in comparison. Followed by tracks such as "Caged…Contorted" and "Crucifier Avengened" become stagnant really quickly as predictable patterns that have been tread many times by CC, play on. The stagnancy is then broken by "Rabid" which offers catchy tremolos but is overall very unsuccessful.
Fortunately CC made a good choice in their choosing of the worthy album closer which is "Torn Through". I feel this track should be the one that should make fans salivate for the next album. Some of the moments here are fresh and have a good techy OSDM feel to them. But this is the album fans have been looking forward to with total faith. Tracks like "Torn Through" and "The Strangulation Chair" should have been littered all over Torture; but rather fans are plagued by extremely solid moments followed by a majority of weaker moments.
Tortures does nothing less than prove that CC should be the world's leading DM band; to those that follow what is now known as "mainstream Death Metal". To those followers of DM who are aware of all the underground acts and their potential, Torture is nothing more than a slightly above average, yet solid album that will get over hyped by the mainstream DM community.
