Review Summary: A shift to slightly less technical songwriting and a clearer variety of styles leads to Torture being one of Cannibal Corpse's catchiest but least consistent.
After the monolithically bludgeoning Kill and the technical Evisceration Plague, the Fisher era seemed to have come full circle and finally refined their core sound into a clear and consistent pattern. The re-introduction of Rob Barrett and a greater emphasis on catchier songwriting with tracks like
Evisceration Plague made both albums more memorable and somewhat better unified in overall direction. Torture in many ways feels like a loosening of the extreme technical sound that had characterized their albums since Gore Obsessed, and is generally their hookiest whilst saving technicality for more effective moments.
Torture's production lends a great feel of frantic energy and, well, goriness. Less like a sledgehammer to the face a la Kill and more squashy and razor edged simultaneously, the loose but trebly guitar tone combined with the extremely present bass leads to a swampy, fleshy sound that leads the whole experience to feel much more organic and suits the less technical sound perfectly. Album opener
Demented Aggression is pretty much the perfect exemplifier, with its thrashy riffs and mid-course breakdown feeling much more savage, like a sonic sawblade.
Whilst the band as a whole steps down its levels of technicality, each member seems to get more moments to shine to themselves. Alex Webster seems to be the only member who remains as spidery and frantic as ever, peppering his twisty lines under the more simplistic guitar riffs of tracks like
Caged... Contorted and having his fair share of technical breaks in
Rabid and
The Strangulation Chair. The songwriting styles of each member feels better exemplified here too, with Barrett's catchier, old-school style leading to simultaneously aggressive and infectious tracks like
Encased in Concrete and
Sarcophagic Frenzy that appear more often and sound more unique. Pat O'Brien's leads are at their very best here, with probably the band's most memorable solos on
Followed Home Then Killed and
Rabid. Additionally, the greater variety of songwriting styles helps contrast the more technical songs with the predominantly simpler ones;
Rabid stands out as the most technical with its unusual polyrhythmic 7/8 guitar riffs over 4/4 drums and vocals, and album highlight
Intestinal Crank manages to marry the looser sound with its escalating and disjointed chorus riffs.
The weaknesses of the looser approach do crop up from time to time. Some tracks are just a bit boring, especially
Crucifier Avenged, which just feels a little too restrained and limited tempo wise to really match the rest of the album.
As Deep as the Knife Will Go is the most intense track here but doesn't really match the power, technicality or hookiness of prior albums and so feels a little dull in comparison. For all of the excellence of its solo,
Followed Home Then Killed doesn't really have any exciting or memorable riffs outside its main riff which crops up less often than it should. The tracklist does also slightly decline with quality over the course of the album, opening strong with several standouts in a row and then ending with some of the least memorable ones.
Torture seems to be one of the few Cannibal Corpse albums to represent some kind of noticeable shift in overall style, with its more varied songwriting and more sparing use of technical prowess. However, as a result it does achieve some great highs and some weaker lows. It's certainly more memorable than Evisceration Plague and has more standout tracks than Kill, but if it were slightly more consistent it would be more noteworthy outside the band's discography and in the context of death metal as a whole.
