(Today we happily present Zoltar’s interview of the Belgian death metal band Torturerama, whose pleasingly foul and ripping second full-length was released this past July by Memento Mori Records.)
Back in 2010, as in the bowels of the Swedish underground scene a new breed of newcomers were doing their best to take death metal back to its natural habit, aka somewhere dark and ominous, a seemingly new band popped out of nowhere – nowhere being Bilzen, Belgium for you – and gave everybody a lesson in pure classic SweDeath worshipping straight out of 1991, with the help of the legendary producer Tomas Skogsberg, with their debut demo/EP, Left As Remains. A few releases as filled with HM-2 filth followed, until the band went very quiet before dissolving without a fuzz in 2018.
Having returned in 2023 with a reconfigured line-up and a slightly different – yet still as Swedish-obsessed – mindset, they’ve delivered their second and even more putrid sounding second album, The Elaborate Theatre Of The Macabre, through Memento Mori this summer. And it’s collectively that they’ve agreed to answer a few of NCS’ questions, with their tongue firmly in their cheek as you can see…
First of all, would it be fair to say that, initially, TORTURERAMA was put together first and foremost to pay tribute to the Stockholm death-metal scene of the early ’90s?
Yeah, not really tribute but loved the bands, the scene, the sound. And we wanted to go back to a more primitive style. The SweDeath vibe was our way of doing that.
If I’m not mistaken, you are the only band in Belgium more or less playing that style of death-metal, although you have many peers in the Netherlands innit?
Back then, as far as we know, we were the only ones doing this in Belgium. Later Carnation started with a similar take but also evolved, and so did we.
Where do you draw the line between paying tribute to your favorite bands while making their sound yours, and pure and simple cloning?
It was never intended to be a 1 on 1 copy, just an attempt to bring back a more primitive sound. Not overproduced, no fifteen layers, back to a more natural sound. Both live and recorded. We still do it that way, no digital tricks. Just death metal.
Was it important to get Tomas Skogsberg’s seal of approval, so to speak, on your debut EP? Or was it first and foremost a selling point, as being able to say that your EP was ‘mixed by Tomas Skogsberg’ is obviously a plus for SweDeath fans?
Hard to claim that as a selling point since we are an underground band. He loved to do Death Metal again since he was mostly mixing ’70s revival bands at the time. Tomas is a legend, why would you not work with a lagend when you have the chance?
What went wrong after your first proper album in 2015? I loved it, it was an improvement on all fronts, the artwork was killer, and so was the production, but then everything just… stopped.
We had a good run of shows back then but it all got slowed down due to line-up changes. We wrote a shit ton of material, some songs ended up on the new album, but then we had a small hiatus and Covid happened. We reformed initially as a three-piece. The search for a second guitar player took quite some time, found one, he left due to some personal issues. Then Bèr joined. A longtime friend of the band and it clicked immediately.
When you decided to put the band back together, what had you ‘fixed’ to make it work this time?
It’s not that it didn’t work, or anything needed fixing. We just needed the right people to make it a fully functioning band again. And that takes a lot of time. And so life goes on.
Was it important to come up with a new logo, to showcase the ‘new’ TORTURERAMA?
It’s more like a refermentation. We are older, the music evolved without changing the initial idea. We had been doodling ourselves, Christophe designed the first logo, and then we contacted Skadvaldur for the album cover and decided to let him have a go at rearranging the guts.
What would say, apart from the line-up changes, is different in the ‘new’ TORTURERAMA compared to the ‘old’ one?
Well, everyone involved brings something to the table, compared to prior where most of the output came from just two or three members. So, it’s influenced by new people with a similar mindset. This album is the result of a moldy Belgian basement and five morbid minds.
Would it be fair to say that you’re not just influenced by the Swedish scene these days?
For us it might have started as a SweDeath band but the influences of underground bands old and new always seeped into the moldy basement. But the cornerstone still smells like it is supposed to rot!
When you guys announced you were back in late ’23, you announced an upcoming EP bearing the title The Elaborate Theatre Of The Macabre, which is, incidentally, the title of your new album. That EP never happened, despite two songs being posted on bandcamp. What happened?
We started recording by ourselves, as we have done since the second EP. But suddenly we came up with some new songs when Bèr joined and then decided to dig in and go for a full album. Shit takes time…
As a matter of fact, one of those two songs you posted is included on the new album. Is that a new version? What happened to the other one, ‘Summoned To Conquer The Earth’?
Yes, of course, we re-recorded all songs intended for the EP since we went for a totally different recording approach. The songs went through a second and a third fermentation round, it’s a Belgian thing…
Would you say that on the new album, a song like ‘AbraCadavra’ with its creepy keyboards intro and doom and sludgy vibe is a good representation of what you stand for these days? Meaning death metal, lyrics about zombies and other atrocities ,but with an enhanced sense of dread?
It’s the final touch we might have lacked in the past. Doom and Sludge are among the other genre’s we enjoy. So, they seep into our music.
What’s next for you guys?
We hope to ruin the atmosphere anywhere and everywhere! But first, let’s make this release an underground success!
https://tortureramaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-elaborate-theatre-of-the-macabre-2