Epoch of Methodic Carnage

After the truly arse-kicking MCD Incised Wound Suicide these Maltese death manglers finally gives us a fullength. And this time they’ve added more breakdowns and ‘stop and go’ parts (actually reminding me of some hardcore bands). But don’t get me wrong here, this is full of brutal and grinding death metal.

Do you have a particular person you want to be maimed, dislimbed and finally disgorged? Well then I’d advise you to set this gored grind outfit Abysmal Torment lose upon him/her, as they’ll get to work with the precision of a professional killing machine. Brutal and freakishly accurate and tight drumming meets fat, pummelling strings and spiced with two deranged growlers that’ll keep gurgling in your nightmares.

The skilled musicians in this band proves to be able to keep the same intensity and brutality throughout a five minute long track, something others would fail terribly at. Most of the songs vary between four and five minutes. Awesome sound quality, tight musicianship, brutal-as-fuck death metal, and marvellous artwork… There’s not a single bad thing about this album. A 42 minute assault of butchering, slashing and murdering death metal.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net

I came upon this band when I requested some Brutal Death Metal albums/bands to check out. I had known they had been signed to Brutal Bands record label, and well most bands on this record label were quite shitty. But I did manage to find this gem.

I would pretty much say that Abysmal Torment are original taking different elements from different bands, but they don't overpush them they just show a few hints of it. One thing I came to notice were the slams (breakdowns). Somewhat similar to Devourment's, however they did not exceed them to more than 15-20 long, making them quite tasteful, adding a constrast to the constant blasting and punk-ish beats, unlike Devourment themselves who just overkill and murder them.

The guitarist has some great riffs, the kind that make you want to headbang throughout the entire record, however, what I didn't like was that about two or three songs has different variations of the same riff, which is kind of unpleasant. All in all the guitars are good, but they are muffled, which is kind of a pain. The bass is present on this record, which I do enjoy, because normally you don't hear it at all on any Brutal DM releases. Obviously, it does follow the guitar, and it does a good job. The drummer must be a machine. His drumming skills are phenomenal, and the never at all lets go of the double bass pedals. He either constantly blasts, thrashes or uses punk beats. What I did not like about the drumming production though was that the snare sounds like a tin can which is always a pain, and very annoying noise. The drums overpower pretty much all other instruments on this CD. The vocals are good, they are your typical gurgle, guttural or low growl, with some pig squeals added in the mix. These guys have two vocalists, but it all sounds like one. One or both of their vocalists has some sort of snarl when he spits his lines, but you should be able to get used to it. Some high-pitch vocals would have been nice in the mix, along with some shrieks. Again another thing I did not like was the production. The vocals are really muffled out.

All in all, I think I'm gonna have to say that this is a good record, and if you are able to get over the production, you should enjoy this. A fine release.