Reviews list for Tormentor - Anno Domini (1989)

Oh yeah this is reallly fantastic. It sounds like Slayer's Show no Mercy meets Bathory Under the Sign of the Black Mark. Blistering riffs everywhere, blast beats and some good ol fashioned thrash metal drumming, and the vocal prowess of Attila Csihar. PRE-Mayhem! Have I sold you on it yet? Full-Volume, No Skips. Lryical variety. I do wish the bass was a bit higher in the mix but you can't have everything-it isn't absent I just want more. I have theory that if a black metal band/album contains a reference to Elizabeth Bathory it will be great. Gonna test that later.  You absolutely must listen to this album WOW!

BTW, there are three versions of the album I am aware of. I reviewed based on the 1988 studio version. There was a remaster in 2005, and the album art shown here is of a live recording that I think is from 2018.

Tormentor’s first release, despite being just as evil and disturbing as anything Bathory ever did, had a much larger focus on melody and conscious atmospherics (opposed to “atmosphere” via poor production). However, it was still rather weak despite these innovations, and also suffered from horrendous production.

Their next release, Anno Domini, still has an awful production job, but everything else about it is top notch. The riffs vary between shredding, buzzsaw Thrash and Black Metal leads almost melodic enough to be considered Melodic Black Metal. A couple songs make use of minimal keys and other atmospherics, and the vocalist does an amazing job snarling and screaming, but also enunciating very well despite his heavy accent. The musicianship is messy at times, but despite their limitations they are clearly pushing themselves to their total limit, churning out some really speedy and impressive stuff even if it kills them. With good production, this would be a flawless first wave Black Metal release, but the garbage sound drags it down.

Missed the Wave

Right in the middle of Bathory's Blood Fire Death and the resurgence of Black Metal in the early 90's with the new blood of Darkthrone, Emperor, and Mayhem comes a very strange cult classic that I just couldn't wrap my head around. What starts out as a serviceable occult Thrash album turns into a mess of awfully done lo-fi production with certain instruments cutting in and out of certain sides of the mix and some truly laughable vocals after "Transylvania", which I'm going to call the point of no return for this album. 

Anno Domini is full of decent but messy Thrash tracks plus the slower tempo Black Metal staple "Elizabeth Bathory" to break up the monotony, but everything past "Transylvania's" swing opener is just awful. It's aimless, horribly grating, and just generally uninteresting. Even the Thrash solos really lose their edge after the first few attempts, and the blast beats just overpower anything that could have been halfway interesting. 

It's insane to think that this release came out a year after Bathory's Blood Fire Death, which of course is a huge name to live up to, but I expected something a little more refined than whatever this is. I don't get that same sort of lo-fi kick out of this that I do with Bathory or other early Black Metal bands, and I also don't get any sort of evil atmosphere either. If anything I was cracking up laughing at half of this stuff, so this one was a bit of a disappointment for me, to say the least. 

I'm rather torn when it comes to Tormentor's cult demo / album Anno Domini. On the one hand, this album is massively important and it’s hard to argue how influential it was to a scene just getting started. But on the other hand, listening to it today is not as entertaining as I'd hoped. While Bathory's albums still manage to move me over 20 years later, Anno Domini is more of a hit and miss affair.

Back in 1988, there had not been too many bands that had dared to take what Bathory started and push it a step further into the abyss. Tormentor created ferocious black metal with a massive dose of thrash, that certainly stood out from a very small pack as far as pure unadulterated wickedness. While obviously influenced by Quorthon and Venom, there's something truly feral about this release. A sort of chaotic madness that's missing from almost everything recorded since the mid-nineties. I guess a big reason for this is the inclusion of scene legend Attila Csihar on vocals. His accented style is both bizarre and hugely effective and it's easy to see why Mayhem plucked him up for the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas recording after Dead...well...died.

Unfortunately, there are just not enough great moments on the album for me to label it anything other than important and cult. I enjoy Tormentor I, Heaven, Damned Grave and Apocalypse well enough, but the majority of the other 9 tracks range from extremely awkward to merely average. Most of the shorter tracks, such as Anno Domini, Transylvania and Trance are forgettable and even the classic Elizabeth Bathory comes across as a slightly clumsy (yet admittedly memorable) attempt at an epic, thematical piece. All up I guess this album certainly deserves its place in history alongside Sarcofago's INRI, and so I can't be too harsh. But I just don't think it holds up all that well today and, in the end, that's when I'm writing this review.