Demons of Chaos

I saw Chronic Torment live earlier this year, and previous to that I had never even heard of them. The band's roots go back to the early 90ies, when the Swedish death metal phenomenon was still at a fairly young age. But they broke up after releasing only one demo (albeit under a different name), and didn’t reform until 2006. Since then they’ve managed to release four fullength albums on their own, and "Demons of chaos" is the latest installment.

As one can imagine this is pure old school death metal in the typical Scandinavian way. Both classic Swedish and Finnish names pop up, but there’s really no point in mentioning which names; we all know what we’re dealing with anyway. The recipe is quite simple, and it’s that of hundreds (if not even thousands) of other bands out there, but what sets these lads apart from the horde of copy cat acts is the keyboard. While this remains pretty much pure old school death metal the occasional key action adds tons of atmosphere to the otherwise straightforward pounding. The slick and heavy riffing carries with it a lot of groove, and it’s evident they know what the hell they’re doing. Tempo-wise it’s mostly in that classic state before blasting took the upper hand and the only way to play brutal music was by proving you were the fastest drummer in the world. And so the pace is very headbanger-friendly, with the likes of "Visions of Gehenna" sprucing things up with its slow and melancholic twist.

And what about the keyboard, one might think. Well, it’s very subtle in usage so it never floods the music. We’re not talking about any melodic type of symphonic death metal here. But it adds a very atmospheric edge with that choir-esque lurking in the background. There’s not anything really unique about Chronic Torment’s sound, but it still rings true and is certainly worth checking out if you’re a fan of the typical Swedish way.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net