Review Summary: Hope for the American Dream.
“”Here ye!! Here ye!! Behold the beast you’ve been waiting for. You paid good money for tonight’s show and we promised we will deliver! Dim the lights and let’s get this show started!””
Torture Chain is an American Black Metal band who quite plainly writes awesome music. With their fourth cassette/demo release “Time is but a Doorway to the Incinerator” [TIBADTTI] these guys show everyone how good music is written in the Black Metal genre. Clearly tedious amounts of time and energy must have gone into this release. Essentially the listener is taken through a one track experience of aggressive, yet delicate textures of solemnities. Beginning with clean, eerie, layered synths that slowly inch their way into your head, light entrances of serene, nylon stringed guitars dance in unison. Then, almost like an overtaking black cloud, the illustrious patterns of distorted guitars coupled with immediate drum blast beats show off their perfect bond of captivity. As various aspects of well fitted passages build off each other the perfect balance of dissonant, yet upfront shrieked vocals lay the final puzzle pieces. From this moment it’s hard not to fall into a trance.
Some notable aspects layered over the enjoyable levels of tremolos and blasts are the use of sparing solos. Used as an element to heighten faster tempos, the solo usage on “TIBADTTI” adds a bit of freshness as well as filling possible moments of stagnancy and void. With this purposeful emlement Torture Chain are fortunately smart enough to not overdo the usage of leads; thereby showing there implicit need to focus on emotion rather than wankery.
I couldn’t help but notice the “gelling” moment for me, the part that really brought everything into proper perspective and appreciation. This is the use of catchy chord transitions or what some would like to call the “riffs”. Sometimes you’ll find a harmonizing melody which gives the perfect balance of bliss, yet darkness. This is obviously due to the usage of sharps and flats in the typical guitar scales. At times you may hear melodies similar to early Dark Tranquility, then at others times you may hear a Middle Eastern pattern and even chromatic blending. Whatever the case may be it is more than apparent these guys took their time in making sure the riff transitions were smooth and cohesive to the overall nature of this 23 minute masterpiece. The journey you will experience with this release should be both enlightening and satisfying. You should be experiencing some of the best emotions you’ve felt in your life as well as some of deepest most personal emotions. It’s a gift when music can bring out such qualities within yourself. Torture Chain continue to make great meaningful music with their strongest release, which can only hint towards something greater and more special in the years to come.
