As my 4th listen of Sworn Vengeance draws to a close, I find myself asking numerous questions in reference to the makeup of Severe Torture. Do they still have their original belcher? Did they lose their initial guitarists? Did the songwriting duties get handed over to the drummer? What has happened here?

In 2001, I was at the now defunct Ohio Deathfest. So was Severe Torture. To summarize their performance, they rocked the house. People went crazy for Dennis' subhuman watery grunts, the freshly sharpened deth-riffery, and even a "Hammer Smashed Face" cover that induced a pit that knocked over merchandise stands. All this with only one album under their belts, the timeless classic Feasting on Blood. Its successor Misanthropic Carnage took the same familiar path and was a quality product as well. But something went awry with Fall of the Despised. Perhaps the experimentalism was due to a lack of fresh ideas, or a signal that they were headed in a new direction. Well they've attempted to return to the field of "brutal death", but are clearly armed with absolutely nothing. A flaccid production (it's clear, but severely lacks power) flaunts the new vocals of Dennis, which he blatantly borrows from 666,666 other death metal bands; the common gruff to high tradeoffs (there is actual clarity in some areas...Gasp!). What became of the outrageous gurgles of Severe Torture's early days? A characteristic that defined them has been tossed aside and replaced with the dumbed-down version to appeal to Best Buy shoppers. With a signing to Earache this may partially explain the manufactured feel of this lifeless attempt at brutal death. Gone are the high energy blasting riffs that you'll hear in a session with "Feces for Jesus" or "Twist the Cross", replaced with monotonous "cutting room floor" guitar work that, quite frankly, exceeds sitting through church for unrefined boredom & pointlessness. Realistically, there currently is no difference now between today's Severe Torture and an unsigned teenage death metal band that will stay unsigned.

Earache's acceptance and distribution of such a stale product perplexes me. Can Severe Torture do better than this? The proof is in the past. Hopefully their next effort will have a pinch of creativity, energy, and undecipherable vocals to remind us of what they once were. But such results will require drastic measures, and something must be done soon for Severe Torture to avoid becoming the Soilwork of brutal death metal.