Hailing from Italy, and signed to the Brutal Bands sub-label Extreme Underground, Necrotorture unleash 6 tracks of violent brutal death metal on their sophomore effort Blood Feast. Clocking in at just over 16 minutes, Necrotorture cram as much brutality into the 6 tracks as they can.

Obvious influences for Necrotorture include Beheaded, Abysmal Torment, Malignancy, Internal Suffering and Dying Fetus. The band often employ the same riff and blast assault that Beheaded are known for, even the guitar tuning and drum sound and vocals are almost exact for segments of several of the songs. I often found myself having to double check and make sure I wasn’t actually listening to Beheaded a few times because the sound really is that similar. Unfortunately, Necrotorture aren’t as skilled with their instruments as their brutal brothers from Malta but for simplistic brutal as fuck death metal this is some decent material.

Contained within the 6 tracks is a cover of Napalm Death’s "Scum". Hearing one of the classic grindcore anthems redone as a brutal death metal track threw me off at first, but these Italian freaks actually do a pretty decent job, not overwhelming, but decent.

One thing about Necrotorture that helps them stand out amongst the brutal death metal crowd are the high pitched shrieking vocals that are included from time to time. I’ve heard the chirping shriek used in goregrind many times in the past, but I think this is the first time I’ve heard it used on a brutal death metal album and although it’s kind of silly, I like it.

The only thing about this album I truly hate is the cover artwork. It is, by far, the single most horrible piece of shit I have ever looked at in my entire life. Whoever designed it should be arrested for using a pirated version of Photoshop for the purposes of creating awful, awful artwork. It’s so bad it makes the scribblings of a toddler look like a Michelangelo painting in comparison. You know, the kind of artwork your kid gives you and tells you it’s a family portrait, and you tell them it’s great even though it looks like a circle, a bunch of lines and scribbles in multiple colors that make you believe even your dog could have drawn something better after eating a bag of magic mushrooms and that you look at and secretly wish you could set on fire to ensure the artistic abomination never reaches the eyes of another living being. Yeah… it’s worse than that.

When I first tossed Blood Feast into the CD stereo I was fully expecting to hate it, and I’m really surprised that I don’t. 16 minutes of material is perfect for this effort, any longer and I think the band’s limitations would have stood out a lot more, but there’s enough decent music on here to make me interested in hearing something new to see how the band has progressed since the recording of this effort. Worth checking out if you’re a huge fan of the mindlessly uber brutal Beheaded material.

Written By: Teufel