MARTYRDOOM is a death/doom metal band that form in 2010 as DEATHLUST before changing their name to its current moniker later. “As Torment Prevails,” is their second full length album, in addition to also having a split and a demo under their belt. While they definitely have a doom aspect to their music, their sound is also rooted in OSDM. The mixture of these two genres are perfect for allowing the band to infuse this album with thick and low riffs that have an excellent tone. The production and mix has a decidedly old school sound to as well. The bass and drums are very strong under this engineering, providing a truly impregnable foundation. The riffs are loud and disgusting, but not overly. The vocals are growls with just enough hints of depravity to them without being comical.

“Voidcreeper” opens the album with ominous tones that give birth to sweltering guitar. A slower undercurrent rides underneath as the drums build up the tension. By the 1:22, the band is committed to ramping up the song until it pushes it off a cliff around the 1:46 mark. With the bottom dropped out from the doom intro, the song goes into a devastating free fall of tight riffs and lumbering, behemoth approach to crushing. The later half of the song sees the return of the doom, proving the band is adept at play either style. “ Katatonic Ascension of Cirrhosis,” is a murky, dismal banger of a song with some truly nasty riffs that are dredged up from the bottom of a bottomless pit. The slow groove just annihilates then takes it a step further with a sudden change into a brutal tempo, kicked off by the bass guitar. Carnage and chaos live here, the band just ripping it up. The riff slowly wind back down for a brief passage before charging back in. The last moments of the song are a miasma of gripping death/doom.

“Shedding of the Soul,” shows off the band’s penchant for melodies that are as heavy and dark as anything else they do. This song moves at a steady pace, with the rhythm section providing optimum moments to head banging, throw yourself into a ceiling fan, punch wall, whatever you want to do. I love the 3:17 mark as these riffs twist and slither like a song, slowing the song down to a doomed out dirge “Festering Existence,” features incredible drumming and bass, both of them adding a new layer of frantic heaviness to the proceedings. The riffs are groovy and the band fires on cylinders for the entire song. The speed and precision of the later half of the song is as mesmerizing as seeing lighting strike a few feet in front of you and as deadly as that bolt of energy hitting you.

The last original song is “Garden of Flesh,” as the last track is a killer Autopsy cover of their song “In The Grip of Winter.” “Garden of Flesh,” is a gripping way to end the album. The double bass fills up the air around the slow, grinding riffs and the bass is a machine unto itself. The song picks up the pace and blitzkriegs through the next couple sections, with the vocal spitting out pure venom. The riffs near the end of the song are MASSIVE, musical equivalent of mountains that can get up and walk around. All in all, I enjoyed MARTYRDOOM’s “As Torment Previals” because of how well it mixes doom and OSDM to a truly crushing degree.