EP Review: Torture Hammer – “Torture Hammer” (Death Metal)

Written by Kep

Sometimes when I’m writing about death metal I use flowery language and big words. I talk about a richness of texture and tone and wax loquacious about theme development and subtle nuance. But then sometimes I’m writing about bands like Torture Hammer. To get all verbose and eloquent with my words wouldn’t just be counter to the music’s ethos; it’d be an insult to Dumb Heavy Shit scene-wide. 

So yeah, forgive me for getting straight to the point with it today; it’s a bit hard to think with my skull lying on pieces on the floor. Torture Hammer is a fucking bunker buster of brute power, the sort of shit that hits you like a wrecking ball to the chest. This first EP is a tight, no bullshit effort that sets out to do one thing: wreck your goddamn shit, and consider my goddamn shit wrecked. 

Sitting at just under 14 minutes across six tracks, Torture Hammer is about as concentrated a dose of big beefy riffage as you’ll find in death metal, and yes, there is a song called “Torture Hammer” on Torture Hammer (it’s the lead single), so you can and absolutely should be posting “the song ‘Torture Hammer’ from the album Torture Hammer by the band Torture Hammer” on your social media account of choice sometime soon. Fuck, was that a run-on sentence? Oh well, as mentioned previously, my brains have been pounded to mush by this thing so you get what you get. Not a damn song over three minutes to be found, just focused auditory haymakers. 

Honestly, good on Creator-Destructor for picking these guys up the strength of just a four-track demo from back when they were a two-man operation (which I have also listened to now, and it rules, of course). This EP is the first recording Torture Hammer has made with their full lineup, which includes drummer Max Mahmood of Bay Area slammers Iron Front and founding vocalist Peter Pawlak, aka the guy who did vocals for Rings of Saturn back in the day when they were actually fun. Founding guitarist Sean Collins and new bassist Amir Sahabi round out the group, a four-piece of dudes who unquestionably Get It when it comes to making me want to bang my head. 

“Bodily Harm” is the first blow and it’s a ripper of scything riffage that eventually devolves into belligerent pummeling. Economical too: half the track is built on variations of that first vicious riff. The title track is a an exercise in dumb heavy grooves, stanky pinch harmonics, and destructive breakdown. “Object of Desire” speeds things up then gets slammy in its brief sub-two-minute runtime, while “Catastrophic Collapse” pulls things back to a meaty mid-tempo chug and ends in brutal grunted drubbing. “Hammered” trades on catchy syncopated rhythms, and “Coward’s Surrender” ends things in grand fashion with an expansive 2:57 of hardcore-influenced ignorance. This thing sounds killer for a debut EP too, thanks to Charles Toshio, who has also produced a bunch of releases by Bay Area hardcore acts including Spy, Sunami, Snuffed on Sight, and Scowl. 

THE BOTTOM LINE

Look, what else do you want me to say? Good riffs good. I’ve listened to this thing like ten times. It’s heavy as hell, catchier than measles in a room full of antivaxxers, and endlessly replayable. I hope these dudes visit southern California posthaste so I can get my chest caved in in person.