Tortured Demon: Youth Gone Wild
When gigs and festivals started back up in the wake of the pandemic during the summer of 2021, it wasn’t a surprise to see both bands and attendees unleashing over a year of pent-up energy in one fell swoop. It made for some electric atmospheres, bruising performances and, most of the time, everyone and everything remained in one piece at the end… most of the time. “Honestly, we didn’t even know we broke the stage!” Laughs Joe Parkinson, drummer of Oldham-based thrashcore starlets TORTURED DEMON. “Only when we came off were we informed that the stage had to be closed for repairs for an hour or two afterwards!”
“We saw the barriers were moving, but that was it!” confirms vocalist, rhythm guitarist and brother to Joe, Jacob Parkinson. Yep, you’re not reading this wrong. With a throng of 2000 in front of them at Bloodstock Festival two years ago, TORTURED DEMON played so hard that the barriers on the tiny Jägermeister Stage collapsed and the poles for the tent caved in. It proved the catalyst for an astonishing rise in the band’s image that sees them return to Catton Hall this year on the much sturdier Sophie Lancaster Stage and with a superb new album under their belts in sophomore release Rise Of The Lifeless – to boot, the four members have an average age of just nineteen-and-a-half, with Jacob still not yet an adult.
“That Bloodstock show made us wake up and realise that people were taking our band seriously, so we in turn stepped up in response,” explains Joe. “We’ve begun to look back at what we’ve done and try to better it going forward, which is exactly what we did when we came to write and record Rise Of The Lifeless. But also, we know that it wasn’t that long ago that we weren’t gigging outside of Manchester, so we’re staying pretty grounded.”
Jacob nods his head in approval. “We have to remember deep down that, at the end of the day, we’re just fans of music who happen to have made a bit of headway.”
For all their grounding techniques, though, the brothers admit there was pressure when it came to the new record; their debut, In Desperation’s Grip, was released just before their Bloodstock debut and now they’ve not only had to follow it up, but with a lot more expectancy on them. “We didn’t want to make the same album again,” reveals Joe. “We looked back on it, saw what we could improve on and did so.”
“I like to see our debut as a precursor to this one, and I want everyone else to see that as well,” says Jacob. “I was 14 when we recorded In Desperation’s Grip – I don’t even think my voice had properly dropped by that point, so I’ve literally changed as a human being in that time as well!”
“Even the songs we’re writing now are going to be better than Rise of the Lifeless”, muses Joe. “You can be proud of something, but also see where you could improve moving forward.”
If that’s the quality to come, there’s good reason to get excited, because Rise Of The Lifeless is one of, if not the, best thrashcore albums you’ll hear this calendar year. Equally bludgeoning and bruising as it is melodic and serene, the ten tracks thunder through with all the speed of Warner Bros. Roadrunner and all the force of whatever explosion Wile. E. Coyote is about to face in his next failed catching attempt, all mixed and produced by the steady hand of David Radahd-Jones.
“David is, hands down, the most professional person we’ve ever worked with,” Jacob says assertively. “He got the best out of us and pushed me to a point I’ve never gone vocally before; I never thought I’d be able to sing melodically before and he got it out of me. We also had more time to record this record, so we could experiment with certain things and bin it off it wasn’t working out for whatever reason.”
“The other big thing was that we went into this one knowing it would be an album,” explains Joe. “In Desperation’s Grip started as an EP that ended up becoming an album because we started writing it just before the pandemic and had a lot more time to play with things. Along with our mentality that every riff, chorus and note had to be better than before, it really pushed us along.”
With both brothers dropping out of education to concentrate on TORTURED DEMON as full-time as possible, there’s a real sense that, if this goes belly up, they could be left in a spot of bother. Given how good they are right now, and how good they’re going to get, there’s no reason for them to worry whatsoever.
Rise Of The Lifeless is out now via self-release.
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