One look at the cover art for the debut album from Tampa-based Torturers’ Lobby tells you that the music is likely to be disturbing but unconventional. It’s not easy to decipher what we’re seeing. Though skeletal remains and a vulture’s head appear to be part of the scene, the ghastly greenish hues and running veins create a twisted image of an old desecration.
It turns out (thankfully) that the music is also disturbing and unconventional, even more so than the cover art, the result of a willfully free-wheeling hybridizing of influences that follows only its own twisted logic but (also thankfully) doesn’t come off as “different for the sake of being different,” cohesion be damned.
We should quickly add that the music’s intensity is often so overpowering and shattering that it might leave you bug-eyed and slack-jawed.
As evidence of these conclusions we have two songs from the album to spotlight today, one of which has previously surfaced and one of which we’re premiering today in advance of the album’s June 14th release by Caligari Records and Ixiol Productions.
We’ve already ejected a bunch of words about the earlier song, which we’ll repeat here:
What you get first in “Reaper’s Impunity” is a big jumping groove that anchors riffing which pulsates and burns in piercing tones and seems to channel fraught moods of hopelessness and pain. But that’s just the start.
From there, punk beats come out along with haughty growls and demented howls, and then blasting drums and dense waves of searing fretwork, even more frantic and fraught than before.
But wait, there’s still more — delirious soloing that spirals high, wailing like a siren, and bursts of rapidly thrusting groove, capped by a final convulsion of militarized drum eruptions, harrowing vocals, and sweeping, skies-on-fire chords that sound like agony elevated.
The name of the album is Deadened Nerves. After listening to that first song, it will be clear to you that the title doesn’t refer to the effect of the music on listeners — the actual effect is something like the polar opposite of anesthesia. It seems more likely that the album name connects to the lyrical themes of the songs, as described by the band:
“We do not write silly songs about juvenile notions of ‘evil,’ the ‘occult,’ or fictitious gore. We strive to turn humanity to face its grotesque reflection and reconcile with its own evil and misguided obsession with cruelty, morbidity, and lack of independent thought. This is a real reflection of the decaying world around us, though we are not seeking to advocate for it.”
With that in mind, the intent of the cover art becomes more clear. We’ll also share the band’s comments about the music they’ve made:
“Truly, we just wanted to create unique music we haven’t heard, yet want to listen to. It’s very difficult to nail down what we play, and we like it that way. We worship no specific style, as the greats have already done it, so there is no sense in recreating some watered-down parody of it. We just wanted to be different and pursue something new, a different direction in violent ‘underground’ music. We have jokingly referred to our sound as ‘Florida shitkicker.'”
Which brings us to today’s song premiere, a track called “Reptilian Hide“, and it’s no fucking joke.
Without warning it explodes in a megaton blast-front of scathing and slashing riffage and battering percussion, then morphs into a madly writhing spectacle of violent delirium, driven to a fever pitch by absolutely unhinged snarls, barks, and screams. You can get caught up in the galloping beats and feel the grooves that rapidly hammer the heart, but the riffing is so dense, so incendiary, and so maniacally angular that it feels like we’re galloping into a hurricane made of fire.
But as you will have already anticipated based on the album’s first single, this new song switches gears, slowing and casting a dismal and near-hallucinatory pall on the senses. The rhythm section continue to kick the shit out of the listener, albeit more methodically, and the vocals are still terrifyingly insane, but the slowly writhing music sounds queasy and choking.
And yes, yet again, there’s still more to come! Backed by a slowly jackhammering beat, a guitar solo yowls and wails and screams, creepily distorted but brutally piercing, chilling but as hot as hell’s flames. The sound fades, and you think the gauntlet has been run… and then the song comes back to life in a ruinous cacophony of madness.
TORTURERS’ LOBBY is:
Adam Shaw – Vocals
Dwane Nihiser – Battery
Ryan Conway – Bass
Evan Dawson – Electric / Acoustic Guitars / Synthesizer
Caligari Records will release the CD and cassette tape versions of Deadened Nerves, while Ixiol will release the vinyl version.
PRE-ORDER:
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/deadened-nerves
https://www.ixiol.com/
TORTURERS’ LOBBY:
https://torturerslobby.bandcamp.com/album/man-in-zugzwang-e-p