The death metal band Tormented is looking to shake things up with their new EP, entitled "Graveyard Lust." It contains six full tracks of beastly guitar riffs and monstrous drum fills. The quality of the instruments are good but the one thing that makes this EP a rocky rollercoaster is the vocals and the mix of the vocals. Some of it's fine but most of it is not.
The opening track starts out with eerie acoustic guitars that quickly turn into raging distorted riffs blasting violent chugging patterns. The drums kick in along with the vocals which start out with a light filter on it. The vocals are delivered in a shouting tone with fast aggression. Relentless snares pound away while cymbals shatter high in the background. They use a couple of delay effects on the vocals at random times that don't really seem to fit well. I guess after a while you get used to it. They keep the filter on the vocals throughout the entire song giving it a weaker sound to the mix. If they used it once or twice then that would sound fine but using it the whole track is a little too much. "Revel In Blood" uses similar tones with the guitars as monstrous riffs stomp all over you. The drum fills are absolutely insane with wicked double bass pedals rumbling violently underneath you while detailed toms and snares wrap circles around you. Cymbals continue to crash relentlessly forcing you to get into a moshing mood. The vocals however don't really get any better. It seems that all of their mixes use this nasty filter on the vocals that really just takes away from the music. On top of that, the vocal deliver is a completely rip off of Slayers "Reign In Blood." The way those lyrics echo into the air sounds exactly the same. He might as well be screaming "reign" instead of "revel." If I wanted to listen to Slayer I will just play Slayer.
"Sacrifice The Dead" starts out with punishing guitar riffs that completely beat you into the ground with vicious melodies. The distortion is pretty wild. The vocals however again go straight to the same delivery and same sound effects. It really gets old after a while. It all starts to sound the same. Just a plan boring mono tone voice shouting away. "Horror Of The Faceless Dead" starts out with a powerful bang of quick melodic guitar riffs and insane drum rolls with non stop cymbal smashing and thunderous kick drums. Once the vocals step in it's all down hill from there. It almost sounds like you just listened to the first track six times in a row. They need to do something with these vocals desperately.
For a band coming out of Sweden, I expected a lot more from Tormented. But then again there's gotta be disappointing bands out there to the good bands shining. Musically the band has a lot of potential but they need to get a little more creative with their vocals. Hearing the same tone over and over again can really fatigue the human ear. Hopefully this EP taught them a few things and now they can go back a fix the problems before an album is released.
5/10
Official Site - http://www.myspace.com/fuckingtormented
No comments:
Post a Comment