AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: MORTAL TORMENT — “CLEAVER REDEMPTION”

The Greek death metal band Mortal Torment are celebrating their tenth anniversary of tormented existence by releasing their second album tomorrow via Gore House Production. And I think an opening round of applause is in order for the band’s choice of album title: Cleaver Redemption. And let’s have a second round of applause for the completely fitting cover art created by Athens-based Remedy Art Design (Keep of Kalessin, The Crown, Uncleansed).

Of course, the key question is whether applause is in order for the album itself. You can decide for yourselves, because we’re giving you the opportunity to hear all of it. With song titles such as “Epileptic Defecation”, “A Million Skulls To Bludgeon”, and “Fucked In the Eye Socket”, you will find some clues about what awaits you. A few more clues may be found in some of the names identified by the band as influences — Dying Fetus, Aborted, Benighted.

Over that decade of existence, Mortal Torment have clearly honed their skill at lead-pipe thuggery and savage butchery. Wielding meat-cleaving riffs and a weapons-grade drum attack, they deliver one deliciously brutal beating after another. The songs are sure-fire mosh triggers, and the grooves in this album are so massive and so infectious that it’s capable of spreading a plague of sore necks.

There’s not much room for breath in Cleaver Redemption — it’s a slaughtering explosion of mayhem almost all the way through, though segmented by roof-collapsing breakdowns and squealing guitar excretions that match up nicely with the pig-squealing vocals (the vocalist also regurgitates an array of convincingly gruesome gutturals and wild howls, and the guitarists also deliver a banquet of malignant, tremolo’d leads that sound like drill bits whirring through concrete).

But despite the generally relentless attack, each song sounds like a fresh and exhilarating new experience — and songs like closer “Hymn To the Rotten” prove that the band can be just as horrifically dominating when they vent their more doomed and dismal side.

And damn, the production on this album gives it a humongously heavy, titanically powerful, ridiculously explosive sound — all the better to stomp your skeleton to smithereens.

Lots of bands claim the likes of Dying Fetus and Aborted as influences — but Mortal Torment are the kind of band who can go toe-to-toe with them and not give an inch.

Cleaver Redemption will be released by California-based Gore House Productions on October 16 and it can be ordered on CD, along with related merch, HERE. Digital pre-orders may be placed via the Bandcamp link below.

https://www.facebook.com/mortaltorment
http://mortaltorment.com/
https://gorehouseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/cleaver-redemption