Register Forgot login?

© 2002-2024
Encyclopaedia Metallum

Privacy Policy

Heretic > Torture Knows No Boundary > Reviews > Gutterscream
Heretic - Torture Knows No Boundary

A cool-looking firecracker that just goes ‘pphhht’ - 53%

Gutterscream, June 29th, 2006
Written based on this version: 1986, 12" vinyl, Metal Blade Records

My first mistake, albeit an honest one, was presuming this boiled with some sort of thrash intent. I mean, the dissentive name, Torture Knows No Boundaries, the somewhat churlish titles, Metal Blade, and ’86 all pointed to the style with a dirty fingernail. Well, with one whirl of this five-tracker I realized I should’ve taken a better look at the band’s rear cover photo that doesn’t cake it on like Teeze or anything, but more Loudness meets Fates Warning with a feminine slap of brunette King Kobra. Come to think of it, that’s about how it sounds too.

Older traditional and power metal traverse each other’s opaque barometers for something a few decimals short of something minutely commanding, a sound where riffs drearily mundane and ordinary drag “Riding With the Angels”, a cover by Russ Ballard who’s best known for his work with second string ‘70s rockers Argent, “Portrait of Faith”, and “Whitechapel” through a metal wilderness that’s been long deforested and resettled by tribes more ardent. I’m the last person who’d say there’s no place for this style, but when a band intends to tread land that’s already been trampled, the music should at least have a modicum of intrigue to lead it away from the old ruts and muddy ditches along the way. If intrigue’s too abstract a commodity, how about just a peppering of flavor or a mere aromatic dash to enliven its musical scope – in other words, dazzle me even just a little, inflate my senses. Maybe Brian Slagel had a cold when he okayed this.

“Blood Will Tell” is the only track that portrays anything dynamic, barely wiping off the froth of the ep’s maw of mediocrity with a more hurried lifeforce that can be heard on the band’s mid-’88 follow-up.

Printed on the insert is this rather long diatribe that tries to explain the ritual of heavy metal – societal non-conformity, civic misunderstanding, its unbending will, and some grandstanding that’s only a little self-aggrandizing – that unsurprisingly comes off more like a book summation than a revelation. Yeah, these are the guys who’re going to pull it all together for us.

So as my mind wanders like a kid stuck in a shoe store, I remove Torture Has No Boundaries from my poor turntable and stick it back where it belongs, back in the closet snuggled next to the first Hellion ep.