Album Review: Severe Torture - Torn From The Jaws of Death
Reviewed by Daniel Phipps
When an artist has spent 25 years in the game I think you can say they have a pretty good understanding of what it takes to have success. When an artist spends that amount of time within an neish musical style they have done one of 2 things flip flop between sounds or have such an understanding of their musical genre that they can deliver time after time without the need to try and fix something that is not broken, and for the Dutch band Severe Torture it's safe to say they belong in the second part of that discussion.
It's been 14 years since the last full length record from the band and we got a glimpse in 2022 that the band still had the magic with their 3 track EP “Fisting the Sockets” and the fact that 80% of the line up has been with the band for 20 years plus I did have some quite big expectations of this new record. Going by the title Torn from the Jaws of Death the band really leaves nothing in the tank with how they have composed this new set of tracks. This is an extremely high octane collection of pure fury which contains an extremely intense performance from each member of the band.
Whilst remaining a punishing listen the band do leave time for you to catch your breath and they accomplish this by ensuring they drop some really well crafted grooves and lead parts to go along with the more furious sounding parts of the record. As great as the guitar work is Torn by the Jaws of Death is really elevated by the drum work which is absolutely pulverising all throughout. The kicks sound absolutely devastating as they run throughout absolutely battering your ear drums and really shows the veteran band really have the understanding and capability to continue to create fantastic death metal records. Vocally you hear a really savage performance however they sound quite audible and catchy where you can quite easily pick out sections of the lyrics especially during the chorus sections and that is quite a nice touch.
Torn by the Jaws of Death is exactly what you expect from an Severe Torture record. It's utterly vicious and downright mean slab of classic brutal death metal which does not scrimp or cheat the listener in any way.
