TORTURERS' LOBBY - DEADENED NERVES
After a handful of demos with minimalist presentation, the debut from Torturers' Lobby is a bizarre, sadistic blend of just about any form of extreme music imaginable, inconveniently not lending itself to be pigeonholed into one oversimplified genre. It's definitely one wild ride so let the bludgeoning commence!
It's almost got a spaghetti western motif going with its intro "Dawning", acoustic and mellow for a short bit before an amphetamined-out NWOBHM-style "Barbaric Alchemy" takes hold. After that we're spellbound a a deathrash "Chromosomal Devastation", an ode to violence and wanton bloodlust. With some exquisite riffing and well put together harmony to start "Reaper's Impunity" soon enough burts into an earth-shattering punkish barrage. Thrashing hard is "Re-education", something we all could use, especially with modern-era thrash being so hit or miss and Torturers' Lobby expertly showing how to handle it. We get another short acoustic stint to serve as a penultimate reprieve with "Enduring Spirit" then total deathrash outrage and wrath with "Reptilian Hide" that is a sonic violation of the senses at over five minutes long and the longest track as well, bass bombardment and battery barrage giving us more shock and awe that we could hope for!
An acid trip of excessively violent proportions, "Deadened Nerves" cuts deep and fast with precision butchery and maniacal bloodshed. And of course it doesn't let up in the slightest and promises to leave a wasteland of mangled heaps underneath it. Again, it straddles too many things to be lumped into any category without doing it the justice that it deserves, and the undoubtedly have earned it as well.
9/10
