Polish extreme metal, that doesn't sound Polish! 'Torture Garden' is Demise's third full-length album so far and it can be heard. But sadly, more in performances than in songwriting...

Demise have collected quite a bunch of elements on this album, but when digging into the core, it is death metal and post-thrash riffage mixed, and punchy fast drumming covered with melodious guitars. And nothing is too straight, not too rock 'n' roll. Think about Darkane hitting the same rehearsal room with HateSphere. There's better than average synthesizer work scattered all around 'Torture Garden' (even though 'Grieve no Longer' sounds like a rip-off from the game "F.E.A.R."). At first glance, there's nothing wrong with the music if you like this kind of stuff, but soon it becomes clear that Demise, albeit trying hard I believe, are kind of faceless band after all. And 13 songs?! Come on! There are fillers, kindly spoken: 'Abandoned' being the "best" example of this horrid fate. Still, some of the songs could have benefited from cutting 'em a bit. But for Demise's accolade they can throw in some interesting parts into their songs, if they really want to. This just ain't happening on every song here. And the instrumental closer is out of place, even if it's a nice piece of music.

The vocals are quite multilateral; vital angry grunting, Misanthrope's S.A.S de L'Argilière style desolation (thankfully not that wailing!) and monotonous clean voice, which still doesn't annoy me for my surprise, as this kind of a voice usually does. The lyrics are bad, as they look like they were written by a child, collected from simple sentences and filled with grammar errors.

When checking the credits, there's something rather striking. Whoa, "co-produced and mixed by James Murphy"! Yep, but you know what?! When your drums sound this triggered, studio could be a fucking filled with recognized metal musicians-cum-studio wizards and it wouldn't sound a bit better. And that one cymbal sounds like a phone ringing, I kid you not! The drum issue aside, generally this sounds quite blurry, but nevertheless quite full; it ends up causing pain in ears. But when the drums are so fucked up, it's severely wrecked for me. The cover artwork courtesy of guitarist Andrzej "Sin" Bragiel is certainly different and definitely eye-catching.

I wished that the music inside also was similarly ear-catching, but no. 'Torture Garden' might not be a truly painful torture session, but still it is way too hefty and packed an album, thanks to its filler material, to be thoroughly enjoyable to listen to. But it also has its good songs, so check out the free downloads if this style of metal is for your liking.

Rating: 5½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
09/19/2007 14:14