Hot on the heels of their recently released MCD Butchery Of The Soul comes Misantropic Carnage, the second full length release of Dutch Death Metallers Severe Torture.
From a first glance at the cover artwork of the CD you might already guess what is on offer here - technical, yet ultra brutal death metal in the style of Cannibal Corpse and Deicide, and let me tell you that you won't be disappointed.
The feasting begins with opener Mutilation Of The Flesh and during the following 30 minutes never lets up or slows down as it's obvious that Severe Torture is taking no prisoners. Of course it can be said that the band isn't exactly the most original around and at times sounds very close to genre-kings Cannibal Corpse, and that the running time of the cd (with it's 32 minutes) is rather short but I honestly couldn't care less about such trivial things, and I know for certain that most death metal fans will probably feel the same way, mainly because it's obvious that the musicians at work are more than competent, the songs vary from good to great and everything seems to be put together with great enthousiasm and spirit.
Basically, if you liked their previous work, you might as well rush out and buy this too, the band delivers and does it with pride - the only thing that I might like to in the future is to incorporate a bit more variation in the songwriting (how about a a slow, grinding song for example ?) but that's just a minor detail. Bottom line is that this is a more than decent release from a good band that withstands most of the competition out there, and in some cases, even manages to rise above it.