Tortorum
Extinctionist

Why? That is a question I ask myself quite a few times when looking at albums I get. Why is it that the norwegians keeps pushing out those raw, primitive black metal album that sounds the same and of which there are more albums out there than there has been fans throughout the entire history of the genre. This is what the press info states: “Tortorum was formed in Bergen, Norway by Skyggen (guitars) in 2010, but the idea itself was born some years earlier. It was ALWAYS there. The driving force behind the band lies in the adoration of the Dark Side and hatred towards the weak and slavish religions, consuming in an abyss of disgust and mockery the fall of mankind with his rotten world and values.” Just change names and places and this can be applied to any norwegian black metal band, they all share that value. So what is really the point of releasing another album in a genre where all albums stapled on one another will make a tower at least as tall as Ramnefjellfossen? Just wondering.

Musically it sounds just like anything in the norwegian black metal flora, nothing new, nothing exciting to be honest. The drums are smattering away, the guitar/bass lines are exactly the same as all other bands use and the vocals are just as any other, it sounds like a guy who has just eaten an entire factory of chalkboard crayons. Not really exciting at all, and the cover artwork looks like shit. 44 minutes of playing time is not really short for an album like this either. Well, at least it is the real deal for all the purist to rave about it not dishonouring the genre or its ridiculous values in any way. I think anything with the need to add a lot of religious stuff or just tries to squeeze in as much hate as possible is quite silly and this is a silly album in that regard. Not something I would look closer at had I not needed to, but as I said: it is authentic, in that regards that it obeys all the rules of the genre and makes it one more in that pile.

The name isn’t all that bad though considering how much of a torture it has been to listen through this album several times to banish all doubts about the accurate rating. And no matter how you look at it, this becomes a rather pointless exercise in copying something that has already been done. It is not better than anything else in the genre and neither is it worse, it is just one more and the point in that is which? I have no idea. But what I do know from reading reviews around the interweb and self-torturing myself through the album is that even if you are a fan of the genre you should approach with caution and if you are not a fan of the genre a dive down said foss would be a better use of your time.

So, in the end I have one answer for you: just over 163’000 but I never really did figure it out. My initial question still remains, why?

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