Review: Torfrom “Culto al terror” [Australis records]

Only their first full release since their inception in 1992, Chile’s Torfrom bring us their very long-awaited debut LP, Culto Al Terror, a 40-minute death metal sludgefest.

Opener Confessor starts with a garish wind backed with a death knell before caustic yet catchy riffs groove into view, the vocals dry as shotblast, blastbeat drumming pummelling meticulously. Though short, it sets the mood for the rest of the album and segues nicely into Legion del Mal, which does splendidly with the polyrhythmic stop-start drumming, with the breakdown providing enough room for the moody solo. Psicopata Asesino starts with a mega-heavy sludge doom riff which returns consistently, and, sadly, unchanged, in between the mid-tempo parts of the song – what starts with promising blends into dull obscurity after hearing the same thing on 2-minute loop, and the vocals tend to lose their threat from sheer repetition alone, though things heat up again on the 4-minute mark with a finger tap solo that offers nothing of extra value to the track. Track 4, Luto Eterno, a much darker and slower paced offering that picks up on the 2-minute mark when the guitar solo soars over the rhythm section before settling into black metal riffs till close. Putrefecation follows the same formula as the first half of the album and 6th track offers more mid-tempo death metal. The rest of the LP offers no variety in song structure or technicality, but each track is still worthy of headbanging along to.

As far as ‘debut’s go, it’s nothing special, but is still a solid effort – the drumming and guitar work carry a lot of the songs through the sweetly produced album, though the gnarly vocals can get a bit wearing after a while as there is no emotion or ‘bronca’ behind them, with the atmosphere mostly left for the pacing and the guitar solos/riffs to take care of – hopefully we won’t have to wait another 19 years for their second LP!

Release date: January 5, 2020

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