We lost Dismember, we’ve recently lost or will be losing later this year Vomitory…Tormented have the right style and persona to follow in their footsteps although I will refrain from saying that they could replace them, we are not quite there yet. ‘Death Awaits’ is a punch in the nuts for the death metal naysayers, a journey that began with 2009’s ‘Rotten Death’. ‘Death Awaits’ is beefed up and the subsequent aging process has produced an album that hits all the check points that you would come to expect.
The vocals have an almost Celtic Frost/crust style, their rasp is chorus/reverb driven whilst being very to the point and precise. Precision also is noted in the drumming and therefore on one track all the bases collide and provide the chemical explosion ‘I.O.T.D.’ (‘Incantations of the Dead’). Tormented’s delivery almost awakens or rather resurrects some of the long forgotten quirks of heaviness, a rawness that was true in the genres infantile stages, this is truly authentic especially considering where these gents are living too!
Sustain and reverb may prove to rule the roost for atmosphere on record, you may well struggle to get this same experience in a live setting without a good venue helping matters, but it’s violent as is ‘Insane With Dread’ that marches into ‘..To Ride Shoot…’era Entombed groove ‘n’ roll and thus is very fulfilling. Some of the longer tracks tread water and regurgitate the same old filth time after time, something you may expect, something that does not bother me in this instance, there is passion that is clear and this passion softens any tedious thoughts you may end up reflecting upon especially after taking in ‘Funeral Fire’.
I don’t want or need to try and dissect something that is pretty simple and pretty damn good in all honesty, but it would be sacrilege not to mention ‘Into the Crypts of Death’ as this is a true descriptor of ‘Death Awaits’ as an album. Cynics may find a band treading water but Tormented generally go for song structure rather than blitzing the fret board, Tormented maintains your enthusiasm for anything old school under a ‘Black Sky’ threatening to overshadow the entire planet and thus ensure ‘Death Awaits’ whets your appetite for something nasty even before the lights are turned out.
(8/10 Paul Maddison)
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