By: Anders

Posted: Feb 19, 2006

This second full length album from the Finnish death/gore aficionados Torture Killer has been surrounded by quite a lot of fuzz, due to their new vocalist. That is quite understandable though. As the band has been joined by the legendary Chris Barnes, known from his work with Cannibal Corpse and later on Six Feet Under, and now when taking breaks from Six Feet Under, he's gonna create havoc with Torture Killer. Though it is not like he will end up doing something, he hasn't tried before, as Torture Killer started out as a "fun-band" playing Obituary and Six Feet Under tunes, and those 2 exact bands, still paints a big part of the influences, when Torture Killer makes their music.

Heavy and crushing guitar riffs, moving slowly ahead, accompanied by a steady mid-paced drum-beat, a rumbling bass and a blood-drenched growls, is the usual path of Torture Killer. Though the band is good at spicing things up, we are served some good pace shifts, it's not slow the whole way through and there are some good breaks and pace-shifts within the songs. There are good, though pretty classic guitar riffs, they work great in this context and are spiced up with a wicked lead or 2, here and there. The drumming is quite good as well, varied, hard-hitting but not over-powered and it lays a good foundation for the music. The growls from Barnes are good as usual, continuing the line he has introduced throughout the years in Six Feet Under, a good and guttural growl, with a really good pronunciation, so we can follow what he sings all along the way, spiced up with some of his wicked screams, and it all suits the music really well.

The sound on the album is very balanced and fitting, musically the traces to Obituary and Six Feet Under are quite obvious, and the sound can be traced in that direction as well. Good crunchy guitars, the good and rumbling bass, the well-balanced drums and the vocals on top of cake as the icing. It is Chris Barnes who has produced the album, with some help from Erik Rutan, so one must say that it is a couple of experienced gentlemen, who know what they wanted and how good death metal should sound, that is behind the production.

"Swarm!" is no revelation, but a pretty good album to listen to, if one is into old school death metal á la the bands mentioned. From the first track, the instrumental 'Swarm!', the cards are on the table and the music gets delivered straight up and stable though out the rest of the album. There aren't any surprises, though no disappointments as well, enjoyable death metal for all into this part of the scene, and the great and repulsive cover artwork is a treat as well, good to see some old deeds returning to the album-covers again!

Rating: 7/10

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