Nucleomituphobia, todestriebe and the progeny of the great extreme metal prolapse beyond the late 1980’s informs the pure death metal style and actionable offenses of Portland, Oregon-based medieval mutilation squad Torture Rack who return for a third full-length album despite having thoroughly dominated the greater pacific northwestern psyche with their second LP five years ago. The major question in my mind heading into this assuredly brutal rend of flesh pertains to how necessarily vital a third cycle might actually be. The will to kill is still there, no question about that as they cut into ‘Primeval Onslaught‘, upholding serious enough parity with past works. Through old haunts and entirely traditional focus they’ve managed to meet their own high bar set herein by keeping it simple and focused on a high standard for riffcraft. Your jaw might never drop if you’re legit scholarly in terms of the classics but that doesn’t stop proper death metal from being effective when done proper.

There aren’t a shit-ton of names you can a hundred percent count on for early 90’s filthy, unwiped brutality in terms of the ‘new old school’ death metal factions around today but Torture Rack are old graveyard haunters, still stinking of the ole gravemound fuss and still nailing the rhythmic interest death metal needs just over ten years beyond their formation. Created in the image of muddier, primordial oozed straightforward death metal classics of a certain era these folks took no step beyond ex-thrasher pure USDM nascency as a they formed their initial trio in the name of the heaviest, most punishing death metal they could manage. Within a year they’d put out their first demo tape (‘Medieval Mutilation‘, 2013) which’d caught interest for its catchier, groove-focused early Cannibal Corpse and Baphomet styled bludgeoning with a punkish ‘Acts of the Unspeakable‘ type lean showing under skirt. It was enough to land their gig on cult Spanish label Memento Mori for a debut full-length (‘Barbaric Persecution‘, 2015) which couldn’t have been more classic in its cut, proof that death metal barbarism and regression doesn’t have to involve a lazy riffing hand and in this case rhythm guitarist Pierce Williams had managed a serious feeling for the classic death metal groove despite nowadays being best known as a drummer (Skeletal Remains, Ænigmatum) today. If those weren’t big enough name drops for you the rest of the band built other houses as key members of Witch Vomit, Cemetery Lust and Vrasubatlat-related projects in the meantime.

If that first album served as the body of the beast formed, the skeleton made steel, and the unflinching character of the band decided upon from that point the rest has been a matter of juicing willful ignorance and wilding brutality with serious enough intent since. This is exactly what Torture Rack‘s second full-length (‘Malefic Humiliation‘, 2018) brought, a step up in terms of big-assed grooving riffs which were impressive for their attack in succession as a clip of morbid and damaging swipes which still had that lyrical circa ’92 punish to their roll. It was one of the more memorable chunks of uncomplicated death metal horror (without any boring late 90’s hardcore riffs) that year and most of what I’d had to say about it in my review back then I am reiterating here. Since then the band’ve reissued most all of their catalog through Extremely Rotten Productions and released a similar yet kinda mid-paced mLP (‘Pit of Limbs‘, 2021) which served as a direct preamble to what ‘Primeval Onslaught‘ is as a bit filthier, steadily bopping and still focused on grooved-at “peak” USDM charge circa the pre-Ace Ventura: Pet Detective era.

This new record could otherwise be considered the end of an era for the band in terms of it being the last record to include guitar input from Williams who seems to be focusing on drumming otherwise. This ends up being kind of a big deal as I’d chipped through the moment-by-moment of ‘Primeval Onslaught‘ as the bulk of the undercarriage holding it all together lies in the tenacity of the rhythm guitar work and the brutality of the rhythm section delivering it raw and brutal. In fact that is the only real conversation to bring to a death metal record in this style: Riffs are the obsession and serve as the main tuneful element within this type of aggression where grooves hold it all together into sense; What sets the divider squarely between bland “retro” generica and a quality ‘old school’ influenced death metal isn’t necessarily proper sound design or the right aesthetics so much as it is the riffs (and I suppose it helps that Torture Rack has all three elements going for ’em) as a notable rhythm guitar obsession is precisely what fans drawn to this sort of record are looking for. There is no real need to cut into a play-by-play in that sense because it’ll suffice to say that they chug and groove all over this record in a no nonsense throwback sort of way which touches upon hints of deathgrind, NYDM, death/thrash and even hardcore punk enough to avoid it all sounding like there’d been any regression beyond ‘Malefic Humiliation‘.

At ~26 minutes in length and running ten songs deep no doubt Torture Rack blitz through these songs with considerable economy, getting in and getting to the point in under three minutes on average. Some of it cuts deeper like ‘Human Waste‘ or ‘Dawn of Possession‘ and other pieces kinda hit like ‘Horror of the Zombies‘ when the point is just one barreling drive-by groove (see: “Morning Star Massacre“). Scale your own references up to whatever current bands are softballing those old moves accordingly, eh, but I’d felt like a love for the old original stuff is generally where these folks are coming from. The warped-cyclonic movement of “Bone Snare”, the pit-starting firestorm of “Ceremonial Flesh Feast” and the austere yet chunking dread of “Impalement Storm” never quite have a chance to form a complete statement but hold much of their impact upon repeat listens when sidled next to shorter cranked and bashed at pieces. Very few pieces on the full listen manage to be remarkably memorable but all of it is (again) to a very high standard which is split between gory brutality and loose-necked grooves (“Forced From the Pit”) up front with a bit more substance on the back half. Though I am still partial to ‘Malefic Humiliation‘ this follow-up brings a much appreciated upgrade, holds up well to repeat listens, features a fresh-ass new logo and grotesque album art from Rok and ultimately manages enough variety that it feels like they’ve still got places to go with it and a degen reputation to uphold. A high recommendation.

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