TTFAHaving had a digital promo copy of this album for quite a while now it was nice to get the diabolical CD from our editor at the recent Damnation Festival 2014 gig just so I can analyse the cover art and look for some deeper hidden meaning behind the zombie looking creature drooling over some other creature tied up in doggy position. Fascinating cover art and joined to that are the eloquent lyrics, lines of the highest order of creativity and if you believe that you’ll believe anything especially with this bands name being Torn The Fuck Apart. I reviewed their sophomore back in January 2013 and whilst not the most amazing piece of slamming death metal brutality it certainly did its job and I’m certain that live the tunes carved people a new one to go home with.

This third album of demented degenerate bludgeoning sees the band adopting a relatively more intelligent level of musicality, though they’re still a bunch of sick fucks in my opinion, whereby the technical aspects of the band have been honed and the songs have a more focused attitude with the riffs and solos still being a bombarding annihilation but the flow is improved and hence the songs feel better on the ear, not sure the lyrics do though. With song titles to snigger at the album opens with “I Can’t Believe She Got In The Van With Me” and a short sample of what seems like a woman trapped before a surprisingly melodic guitar riff filters through but as you’d expect the tune builds up to the sucker punch riff and double kick torso implosion. Nicely titled “Autopsy Of A Cunt” has a Cannibal Corpse like start which is where a lot of these bands have devolved from as the bomb blasting assaults are coupled to some techy guitar workouts even if there is a woman crying in the background of it. Opening with a sample I believe relates to the Jeffrey Dahmer trial the song is a sickening gorge on the ears with a pummelling equivalent to Dying Fetus of many years ago and of course the sub-genre that band created themselves.

With going to many shows where brutal slamming death metal is often on the bill, albeit low down at this juncture, the trend of standing watching these bands and the rapid hand waving that accompanies is a scene where this band fits ever so comfortably, though I’ll never understand the metalness of hand waving, it just looks plain stupid to me and retarded. Anyway it is noticeable that the band has reduced the samples used and when included they are subtly done as “Sulfuric Semen Skank Dunk Tank” has none and rockets into existence with a blurring snare blast cacophony and relentless double kick and is drenched in huge amounts of guitar hooking throughout. The mid section is highly melodic for this band and is very welcomed as it shows the bands improved song writing and sense of dynamics as the virtual semi-acoustic piece is novel if introduced very abruptly. “Skinned And Sodomized” is two minutes of ear devouring frenzied madness and leads to the title track which has a decent enough riff and is cemented to layer after layer of guitar hooks. The drumming is utterly brutalising as expected and shows that this aspect of the band is equally as important as the deluging amount of riffs and leads. The title track is quite chaotic at times, a riffing slaughter but it does have some milder moments which are where the band has expanded out into. In the scheme of slam death metal this is as good as anything I’ve heard this year and with this improving on the sophomore then this gains a better mark and sees TTFA heading in the right direction.

(7.5/10 Martin Harris)

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