CD REVIEW Eternal Torture

Band: Eternal Torture
Title: Dissanity
Label: Thunderblast Records
Distribution: Bertus / Twilight Records
Release date: July 26th 2011
Review: CD

Munich, Germany-based Eternal Torture were formed in 2008 by four friends (Konrad Schallerbauer-v, g; Matthias Trippelsdorf-g; Andreas Pape-b; and Alex Neuberger-d) to perform timeless melodic Death Metal. After a year or so, the quartet decided to change the core of their style a little into a 21st-centuries’ approach, and after trying this stuff out live on stage (and with very positive reactions, apparently), they concentrated on writing new material, and on rehearsing, before entering the studio. Eternal Torture chose the Dreamsound Studio in their home town and had the recordings of their first album Dissanity mixed by Dejan Dukovic and Jan Vacik (Emergency Gate, Visions Of Atlantis, Serenity).
This debut goes on with this evolution into a more diverse and more modern(ised) form of Death-oriented Metal. After the intro Exhumation, Dissanity sounds as a sledgehammer. The melodic Death Metal songs sound groovy and melodic at the one hand, and epic and thrashing at the other, yet (almost) whole the time with an incredibly powerful approach. Dissanity is one of those examples to show the mass how to perfectly combine catchy melodies with outstanding precision and professional craftsmanship and keeping it all interesting without disappearing into self-worship or fake supremacy. The rhythm, the song structures and the melodies are rather diversified, yet forty three minutes is not that short at all, for this album being composed of too same-constructed hymns. This fact (the imminent chance to lose your attention after a while), and the mix (I think the vocals are over-mixed, so are the guitar solos, while (especially) the basses are too ‘hollowly’ mixed), are pitiful yet not-inevitable and, probably, negligible jammers. Eternal Torture did a great job with this first full length album and I dare to pretend that Dissanity is one of the strongest Death Metal debut-albums in years!

82/100

Ivan Tibos.