TORTURE SQUAD - Far Beyond Existence review

TORTURE SQUAD - Far Beyond Existence

Brutal Records




Just from their name I thought that I may have written about this band in the past. After checking the archives from my previous site I figured it was a different torture named band. This TORTURE SQUAD hails from São Paulo, Brazil, started out in the early 90's and has a bunch of recorded material out. My loss because this is my first exposure to em. 

But that was then because this is the new era of TORTURE SQUAD. While the bassist and drummer are long time members, the band has a new guitarist and lead singer who by the way is a woman with a wicked vocal range. Both of them have been with TORTURE SQUAD since 2015. Like I said earlier I never heard this band's previous line-up material but what I'm hearing here is pretty damm good.


Musically TORTURE SQUAD are nineties era death thrash but with some interesting tweaks. First off the bass is placed prominently in the mix. But hey if I was playing bass in a band for twenty five years I'd make sure my sound was not fucked with especially on my eighth full length. The drum work, as far as this recording goes, is something I have a problem with. Nothing against the musicianship it's just at times it has that banging on tupper-ware sound on a few songs. Although for the most part it's a raging machine of beats keeping the aggressive tempo.


As far as the guitar work, well since the bass takes an up front approach the guitar is mostly low sounding as far as prominent riffs go. The man does have his moments but it's when the guy kicks in with a solo then things change. You'll be listening and suddenly a door kicks open it's face ripping time. It's one of my favorite parts to this release. Finally there's the vocals and they're cool as fuck. This woman mainly pushes a feral witch voice but then will lower things to the guttural but can also put out some beautiful clean vocals.

All in all Far Beyond Existence is a great release with four very talented stand out performers all in sync to create a different approach to a sub genre that surely needs a kick in the ass. I listened to this over four days and each experience had me catching a newer enlightenment. Also I ended up going wow that's fuckin cool for examples the title cut with enough tempo changes that'll snap necks. Then there's the Eastern flavored "Blood Sacrifice" which kinda stops ya because this band is from Brazil. Also "You Must Proclaim" with it's Michael Schenker like 80's Metal uncanny solo which just kills ya. The promo info calls TORTURE SQUAD Incendiary Brazilian Extreme Metal. I agree.

http://www.brutalrecords.us/

https://www.facebook.com/torturesquad