Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Tombstoner - Victims of Vile Torture (2021)

Tombstoner's groovy brand of death metal strays into core territory on more than one occasion during Victims of Vile Torture as they use a collaboration of breakdowns and borderline Swedish DM to deliver their frantic paced riffing and rabid vocal accompaniment.  I do not mind this in the slightest because despite its attempts to prove otherwise with the nasty album title and equally nefarious album artwork, this record is great fun and feels like a real romp outing.

That's not to say that it is all foot-to-the-floor delivery though.  They cleverly use pace to build on tracks like Breaking Point allowing the bass to do its own little runs during the intro.  It soon settles down into Black Breath like riffing and bouncing rhythms though and overall the band show a lot of energetic promise on their debut full-length release.  They even manage to invoke a sense of doom like menace with Dan Megill and Jesse Quinones' riff patterns weaving in some density to the darkness in the sound.  Dan's brother Thomas handles bass and vocals (along with Jesse who also does vocals) and the drumming of Jason Quinones (yes, you guessed it) is solid and tight.  As a unit there is a strong sense of cohesion in the band based on this outing in the two years they have been together, unsurprising really given that the band have literally grown up together albeit in two different households.

Whilst we are not treated to anything ground-breaking on Victims of Vile Torture the familiarity of it breeds no contempt in these ears.  Yes, it is guilty of the regurgitation of some ideas most definitely and I won't be promising weekly spins of this but as I have alluded to in other reviews before now, sometimes just hearing something done really well is sufficient enough to get some speaker time in this household.  All debut albums in death metal should hold this blistering intensity and genuine thirst for the artform that Tombstoner clearly show here.