Torture Rack - Primeval Onslaught (2023)^{Release ID: 45088}

Primeval Onslaught is an unpretentious old-school death metal assault. Whilst not implying that Torture Rack operate on the same level as previous death metal titans, the album summons up the foetid rankness of Autopsy, combining it with the vitality and intensity of prime Morbid Angel and the brutality of Suffocation to produce a release I found to be both exhilharating and supremely satisfying. I would be the first to admit that, when it comes to extreme metal, be it death, black or even thrash, my tastes are quite conservative and I would much prefer an album of uncomplicated, old-school, brutal beastliness to the more modern focus on experimentation and diversification that has flooded the extreme scene over the last twenty-odd years. Luckily (for me anyway) that is exactly what Torture Rack deliver - and they deliver it in spades. Primeval Onslaught is a glorious celebration of old-school death metal that is well and truly up my particular death metal alley.

The riffs are thick and muscular, hitting like a jackhammer to the temple, with the rank production seeming to hang everything with strips of torn flesh, making the album sound like a veritable bloodstorm. The soloing, such as it is, consists of short, sharp shocks that are thrust at the listener like a stiletto between the ribs. Bass and drums thunder and batter away, driving the quicker material along whilst imbuing the slower sections with a dark ominousness that looms over the listener like gathering thunderheads. The vocals are suitably deep and gutteral growls guaranteed to set the hairs on your neck on end as they vomit out their gross-out lyrics of death, torture and cannibalism, the very creed upon which death metal lyricism was built. There is sufficient variation in the tracks with some mightily memorable riffs, "Impalement Storm" and "Forced From the Pit" being cases in point, to guard against accusations of saminess.

So, what I'm trying to say is that Primeval Onslaught is built on the solid foundations of old-school death metal brutality, to a tried and tested blueprint, that won't surprise anyone with more than a passing interest in death metal, yet is of very high quality. If the purpose is to reproduce the peak nineties death metal sound, then Torture Rack are to be commended for a job well done and to bemoan it's lack of experimentation and criticise it for what it isn't would be more than a little disingenuous and unfair to a band that, to my ears at least, deserve better.