Review Tormenta - Tormented Souls 2011

New Age thrash metal from the Maldives, at least that is how they are marketed or market themselves this band. They are at least from the Maldives which seems to be a bit of a strange place for metal bands to come from but what the hell, it does not really matter one bit from where the band hail. They do have some rather cool promotional shots that I saw when I looked for facts about this EP which is the first effort by Tormenta.

I think that image is one thing and substance is another and many with a cool image does not stand up when their performances are measured. Thing is though with Tormenta that they are trying to stand up to the old american pioneers of the thrash metal genre, successful bands like Metallica or Slayer is what they are competing with and what they also sound eerily alike. I guess it is a sort of hero worship with the heavy riffing and the typical aggression of the classical american thrash metal. The vocals are gruff in a way that is quite close to Slayer to name an example. The production is clean and quite modern and accentuates the tracks and probably have them coming out the way that they were intended. Speaking of tracks, there are six on this EP and they go on for about 28 minutes which put it quite close to an LP in playing time.

For me this EP has a genuine problem and that is the fact that it sounds too much like things that have already been done, the feeling of deja vu or that I have heard it before is just impossible to shake. The songs have an heir of Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth maybe Exodus and the like of those, they are not bad at all but this feeling of deja vu is hard to disregard.

It all opens with the siren warning of an air raid which reminds me of Let Me Live with Angel Dust or Tailgunner with Iron Maiden, it feels a bit cliché and unimaginative. The song that follows is called Judgement and it is quite alright, heavy, hard hitting and energetic but I have heard this kind of song done much better many times before and the feeling is that this band lack originality, there is nothing in their music that feels personal, that feels like it is them. I must admit though that track three is rather good and the same goes for the title track but in general I feel as though I am listening to something done by for instance Slayer.

I think this New Age Thrash thing turns out to be just the same as the old and another thought emerges from my mind, which is that the band has spent too much time creating an image that they just rushed the songs and finished them without really working through them enough. They do have a nice cover, good promotional pictures and everything, the image seems more or less finished, the only thing that isn’t is the website and the music. Maybe when their debut album is released they will have kept the best from this EP and then found their own musical voice and created something that sounds like they should sound.

Tormented Souls is just too much hero worship, too much of “I have heard this before” and too much of the same. I think it can work as an appetiser for what’s to come when the album is finally out, it shows some potential because the band clearly demonstrate that they know the game. For an upcoming album they just need to dig more inside themselves rather than inside their record collections. I say that this album is decent and I think a fan of the thrash I have already mentioned more than once will enjoy this album as well, I am not a big fan and I feel as though I have heard it before, lots of times and done better many times as well. I think well made deja vu is the best description of what he have here.

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Tormenta Tormented Souls

Tormenta
Tormented Souls