ALBUM REVIEW: Severe Torture - Torn From The Jaws of Death

Severe Torture - Torn From The Jaws of Death will be released on June 7th via Season of Mist

Dutch death metal legends Severe Torture destroyed audiences by delivering punishing and unrelenting ferocity since the band's formation in 1997. Since the band's last album Slaughtered in 2010, the band laid dormant as the band went on hiatus. Now, fourteen years later, they have come back swinging and stabbing with the band's newest album Torn From The Jaws of Death. Though gone for over ten years, does this Dutch act still got the intensity and brutality after such a long absence?

"The Death of Everything" opens the album. With Damiën Kerpentier flying all over the kit in the opening section. The band delivers aggressive and driving death metal. Vocalist Dennis Schreurs has that deep guttural delivery as strong as the band's last album, showing he's still got the gurgle and depth in his vocal range. The pacing of the guitars by Thijs van Laarhoven & Marvin Vriesde have such dynamic timing and pacing. With elements of slam at some points, old-school death metal, and modern-era brutal death metal. It is a complex song with all over the place technicality. The breakdown before the three minute mark and into the guitar solo by Vriesde, is a nice transition back into the breakdown again heading into the closing moments of the song. I can hear Patrick Boleij's bass thumps in the opening of the next track "Marked By Blood and Darkness". The song is almost a hybrid of a Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation song, and it sounds brutal as all hell. Especially with the palm-muted riffing and Kerpentier's aggressive double bass in the mix. His double bass drives the point home in intensity during the guitar and bass solos around the halfway mark of the song. Intercut with blast beats throughout the bass solo especially. On "Hogtied in Rope", the band doesn't let up with its pounding drum opening and chugginess. Especially with a heavy as all hell, caveman-like slam riff in the opening, with underlying bass before Schreurs shrieks changes the pace into Cryptopsy-esque level complexity. I like the technical death metal sound on the track, With manic pacing and blast beats sometimes coming out of nowhere at random sections. Strong track and my favorite off the album so far.

The album's title track starts with driving double bass and tremolo guitars. I was instantly bobbing my head along with every snare strike. The riff and drumming almost has a black metal aesthetic to it, which actually sounds more brutal since the tempo is way up there in the play speed and drumming. I was also stank face and headbanging along to the chorus section of the manic pacing and start/stopping of the guitars during that section. Schreurs and his vocal cadence with the guitar, matches the intensity one to one with his guttural depths. Drumming is again front and center in the mix in the opening of "Christ Immersion". I don't know how Kerpentier still has a kit with how hard and fast he is hitting his drums, but he is a damn speed demon on the track. Matching the speed and brutality, the rest of the band goes for the throat with intense vocal layering and ridiculously fast tremolo & chug combinations. "Putrid Remains" is very similar as well. Marked by the unrelenting double bass and tremolo/chugging combination. Makiung the track a sonically punishing track. Brutal and atmospheric with the guitar layering, accented by Schreurs diverse growls and screams, soaked in reverb. The same can be said as well with "The Pinnacle of Suffering". With the band not giving the listener any time to recover from the brutality and sonic onslaught they have delivered with their sixth album. The rest of the album is punishing in it's delivery. "Through Pain and Emptiness" & "Those Who Wished Me Dead" again take what the band has done best on this album. Infusing different subgenres of death metal like slam and just cranking it to eleven and going as fast as they can until something breaks. The album's closer "Tear All The Flesh Off The Earth" starts off with a very atmospheric, slow burn of an intro. Very Seasons in The Abyss Slayer sounding. Then WHAM!, the drums and riff kick the door in and the speed intensifies. Instantly draws comparison to Nile in its guitar playing and double bass aggression in the song. A very intense and heavy closing track for one strong comeback album.

With Torn From The Jaws of Death, Severe Torture came back to deliver a pounding, demanding and welcoming return-to-form with their new album. Following 2023, dubbed "The Year of Death Metal", and with some returning acts coming back this year (Vomit The Soul and Brodequin for example), Severe Torture came back to show that they still got the intensity and haven't missed a single step with this album. Classic fans will be happy with the record, along with roping in new fans.

SCORE: 9 / 10