ALBUM REVIEW: Primeval Onslaught – Torture Rack
Portland, Oregon’s TORTURE RACK are a band that on the surface have a lot of similarities with many acts within the US’ underground death metal scene; the four-piece draws heavily from a pronounced old school death metal influence, and have not shied away from this particular sound and style of death metal since their formation in 2012, with their first two albums, 2015’s Barbaric Persecution and 2018’s Malefic Humiliation, having an incredibly harsh and belligerent sound that quickly won them fans across the States, and indeed the wider world. Their third album Primeval Onslaught builds upon the foundations laid by these two albums, with a slicker production and imaginative song-writing, and boasts some of the band’s very best material to date.
Ceremonial Flesh Feast is a huge start to proceedings, with groove-laden hooks interwoven with feral leads, frenetic drumming and throaty vocals all giving this a ferocious edge that takes its musical cues from old school death metal. It’s an incredibly punchy way to kick off the record, setting the bar high right off the bat. Decrepit Funeral Home amplifies the muscular undercurrent of the preceding track and adopts a galloping drum sound along with sludgy bass and angular guitars for a focused sound.
Forced From The Pit proves to be a lengthier iteration of the style present on the opening tracks with some excellent, chaotic bursts of energy and a diverse range of guitar playing creating an eclectic sound, fully utilising the longer form to explore the harsher, more rabid side of the band’s sound. Morning Star Massacre, by contrast, is a short, sharp shock of meaty riffs, pummelling percussion and bellicose vocals that is impressive but lacks the sort of bestial, unhinged guitar work that has featured on earlier offerings, something that the following track Victims Of Inquisitors has in abundance. The disjointed, descending guitar work and primitive cacophony that punctuates it adds a darkness and unpredictability that makes it even more engrossing.
Bone Snare perfects this blend of dizzying intensity and focused, biting lead guitars, with the coarse bark of the vocals counterpointing this jarring aural assault with dense gutturals that lend this a primal edge that’s hard not to love. Fucked By Death, with its speed-driven punk beat and rumbling bass, has a looser hardcore influence which works well alongside the nauseating approach of the guitars, proving to be one of the most distinct songs on the record. Impalement Storm reverts to weighty rhythmic death metal, with a driven and imaginative sound that sees the guitars and vocals especially building a sense of urgency within the music that the drums and bass do a fairly good job of keeping up with, lurching from one fantastic hook to the next to make this another stand out offering.
Descent Into Infernal Chasm ratchets up the underlying aggression and intensity that has dominated this album to new heights, bordering on grindcore at times in its fast and ferocious pace, resulting in a visceral slab of death metal that possesses some of the most discordant and effective guitars on the album. Rotting Insignificance, with its machine gun drums and slick, catchy guitars, is very reminiscent of this album’s opener, with the bulk of the track having a massive, rhythmic edge. There are some brilliant leads peppered liberally throughout, providing an exceptionally punchy piece of death metal that brings things to a head magnificently.
TORTURE RACK are far from the only band to be producing old school death metal today, but with this album they’ve come very close to perfecting this style in a way that very few bands are capable of even getting close to. Each of these songs is an impressive juggernaut in its own right, possessing the aggression and precision of early CANNIBAL CORPSE and the unrefined, primal qualities of AUTOPSY‘s best work, with a production that is just raw enough to capture that primordial feel that all the best early 90s death metal acts had, whilst still having a sharpness about it that allows the more subtle intricacies to come to the fore. Primeval Onslaught, probably more so than their first two albums, is a fantastic piece of death metal that cements their place among the US’, and perhaps the world’s, best underground death metal acts.
Rating: 9/10
Primeval Onslaught is out now via 20 Buck Spin.
Follow TORTURE RACK on Bandcamp.