Review by Vladimir on February 28, 2023.

Tortured Corpse is a new face in the Polish death metal scene, formed in Silesia last year. They’ve recently released their debut EP titled Rites Of Putridity And Death on February 18th via their Bandcamp page, and will also be available on physical format in the near future. According to the band, they’re heavily influenced to play obscure and oldschool death metal which is suitable for fans of Cannibal Corpse, Nunslaughter and Rottrevore. Let’s dive in and see what kind of “Obscure Oldschool Death Metal Terror” the band has to offer.

Starting out with the first track 'Frozen Womb', there are creepy sounds of a woman crying out for help and an eerie keyboard in the background, before kicking things off with death metal. From then on, it’s a pretty standard death metal with growling vocals, riffs which vary in speed from fast to slow, along with the drums that also vary in this style. Other songs such as the second track 'Burial Mounds' relies more on the slower mid-tempo style of death metal riffing and drumming which later changes to faster tempo, while the fourth title track 'Rites Of Putridity And Death' finally throws in some blast beats to spice everything up a bit, and the fifth track 'Cadaveric Stench Of Rotting Flesh' has more atmospheric tremolo picking death metal riffs which deviates from the majority of the EP’s songwriting. The sixth and final track 'Hellbound' is somewhat special since it starts off with the main theme from the movie Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 before continuing to rip and tear with death metal. Although I liked the fact that the final track is indeed Hellraiser themed, I can’t help but wonder if the band asked for the rights to use the main theme of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 which was composed by Christopher Young, which if not handled properly I am afraid might result in a serious copyright lawsuit, unless the usage of someone else’s musical work regulates differently nowadays since many bands have used sound and musical samples from movies in the past.

Let’s ignore this matter for now and focus more on the overall music from the band, and what I think works and what doesn’t. My main issue with this EP is that the substance for oldschool death metal seems to be there at its rightful place, yet still misses some of the key ingredients when it comes to the execution in terms of pretty much everything. The growls sometimes sound just right but at times they’re a bit dull and weak in my opinion, and are nowhere near as brutal and intimidating as they should be, especially when it’s a horror and gore themed death metal band which often relies heavily on that aspect of performance. The sound production sounds a bit thin and dry in my opinion, with the vocals and drums sounding louder than the guitars which are usually one of the main forefronts of the genre. I understand that they took this approach to make the guitar sound heavy and stay true to oldschool death metal roots, but in the end it just sounds more like an unmixed demo. Apart from this negative criticism, the riffs and the overall songwriting is quite solid and does everything by the book, even when adding some horror movie scream samples to live up to their goal of delivering “Obscure Oldschool Death Metal Terror”.

Overall, the EP has its fair share of flaws which had to be addressed but I still think it is a solid work nonetheless. I believe that Tortured Corpse has an okay start which might eventually evolve into something much more menacing and take it to the next level. Whatever comes after, I hope that the band will improve upon these flaws and offer something that I can appreciate more.

Rating: 6.1 out of 10