Torture Knows No Boundary

Heretic is another of those painfully overlooked 80s acts who managed to produce an unsung classic in their sole full-length Breaking Point, an album I still listen to today with regular frequency. That would be the work that ultimately sold the band's then front man Mike Howe to replace David Wayne in Metal Church, who would ironically go on to front Reverend with the rest of the Heretic cast. But years before Howe even joined them, the Californian band already existed with a previous vocalist, one Julian Mendez, who had a weaker and shrill, but acceptable range to mix with the unit's hybrid of power and thrash metal aesthetics, and their first release through Metal Blade was an EP known as Torture Knows No Boundary.

This is 18 minutes of hard hitting, traditional power metal with a hint of early Metallica. Think mid 80s Judas Priest meets Kill 'Em All, and you're not far off the mark. Mendez is not as effective as the later Howe's deep, biting tone, instead reminding me of a median of two other Metal Blade vocalists: Lizzy Borden and Frank Tyson of the more obscure Krank. It's dirty in the lower registers, and pretty shrill at the heights, though he can't match the pitch and delivery of Lizzy himself. All this would be acceptable if he had been served a series of high quality tunes as on Breaking Point, but while the style doesn't differ, the riffs and composition of this debut were not yet fully gestated.

That's not to say Heretic didn't have a few scorchers on their hands, and I rather enjoyed "Blood Will Tell" and "Portrait of Faith". The former is a road worthy rush with some uplifting chord patterns that are fun to plug along to; the latter is hands down the best track here, with the catchiest riffs and arguably the most urgent and powerful due to the simple but effective bridge with gang vocals. "Riding With the Angels" is hardly offensive, but it has more of a straight up NWOBHM feel with Mendez whining across the predictable chord sequences. "Whitechapel" is worthwhile, with perhaps the most memorable chorus of this early material, with one of Julian's best screams and at least two good riffs, but the closing instrumental title track doesn't add much value (they'll pull off a far better instrumental on the full length called "Pale Shelter".

So what you're left with are three pretty good tracks that foreshadow the greatness to come in but a few short years, and then two that just don't pass muster, for about 10-11 minutes of overall value. As a bonus to a reissue of Breaking Point, they'd function fairly well, but I'm not aware of such a compilation, so you're better off just to skip this and head straight for the full-length if you're new to the band. Torture Knows No Boundary is merely a footnote to a legacy that should be remembered for something far better, assuming that fresh fans beyond the core few in the know ever wake up and discover Heretic for themselves.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

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.

This is the first Heretic album - while not nearly as strong a songwriting effort as the second one, this one still has its fair share of enjoyable songs.

We start off with "Riding With the Angels", which is a Russ Ballard song, that has been covered by pretty much every metal band in existence. Well, it was covered by Samson during the Bruce years, and then Bruce redid it on his solo album, and also Heretic did it in 1988. I have no idea who Russ Ballard is, but this is a great song. At least, this version is. It's fun, it's catchy, and when you add the riffs to make it sound good, it turns out to be nice power metal.

We then have the originals, which are also pretty good. Julian Mendez has some nice shrieking vocals. "Blood Will Tell", "Portrait of Faith" and "Whitechapel" all have some great riffs, almost thrashy at times but mostly power-metal, since they don't quite get fast enough to be speed.

The last song, "Torture Knows no Boundary" is a little acoustic closing song - pretty nicely done, actually. Overall, while this album is not quite as awesome as the full-length thrasher that followed, it's still definitely worth finding.