Torment of Souls - Mortuus Est I
“OoOoOoOoh, Someone Got a Vocal Effects Processor for Xmas”
Written by Big Bear Buchko

It’s about 78°F this morning in Los Angeles, and I’m hunkered down in one of L.A.X.’s unspoken and unadvertised smoking sections; a designation that violates about half-a-dozen LA County health, fire, and safety codes, but knowing how varied the requirements of their intentional travelers can be, is provided willingly, with no advertisement or fanfare. And no attempt at comfort either, as I am slowly working my way down a much needed cigar after a 4.5 hour flight in from Pittsburgh, I find my best options to be huddled up in the corner against the white cinderblock under a cheap Ficus tree, or out in the open, surrounded by glass, directly under the sun on one of the very few benches provided. As I am not, what you’d call, a “sun-dwelling” person, even at 78°F, it’s onto the ground and against the cinderblocks I go.

I’m listening to the different voices around me, carrying on conversations in their own little worlds, very few of them speaking in anything even related to the King’s English. After a few minutes of loving being lost in these total strangers’ rhythmic vocal patterns, I decide to supplement the moment with the next record I’m currently behind on reviewing: Mortuus Est I by the German Utscheid/Eifel, Rhineland-Palatinate’s own Torment of Souls. Before I unlock the album and press “PLAY,” I stare blankly at their name. “Torment of Souls.” That… sounds like a video game. But not a big one. One that was meant to look like Bloodborne, or Dark Souls, or Demon Souls, but was made by a much lesser company with a much smaller budget. Or like a horror movie, but the kind you’d find in the discount bin at the neighborhood pharmacy. It sounds just enough like Dante to evoke an image, but benign enough not to be offensive to positively anyone. “Torment of Souls.” All right. Wow me.

We begin with “Schlachthaus,” and I can’t hide my expression when a truly fascinating and hard-hitting dual vocal assault begins only :04 into the song. I blink hard and adjust my posture. It’s an attention grabber, and I’m instantly excited by what’s ahead with Mortuus Est I. The guitars are churning, their solos are pure ‘80s stadium rock, the grove is undeniable, and despite the fact that I think the song ends with a burp(? – really?), it’s hard and crazy and I’m fully into this. The juxtaposition between punishing metal and technical prowess really speaks to me, and my paper notes on this track are frenzied and positive. There’s something the combined vocal effort that reminds me of something… but I can’t quite pinpoint what it is just yet. I brush it off and assume it’s nothing.

“ Aus der Erde” starts quite a bit differently than the first track; it’s far more musical, and my pop-oriented ears appreciate the variation and changes in tone and energy. The vocals here are the same dual dueling style as presented in “Schlachthaus,” and you can’t help but wonder if this may be a permanent vocal novelty for their act. I appreciate the double vocals, don’t get me wrong, but as a highlight, not as a solid resource. When Dani Filth (Cradle of Filth) or Chad Smith (Hemlock) brings in a metal “harmony,” it’s done as an auditory break from their persistent lead vocals. Here, it IS the persistent lead vocals, and very quickly, it begins to grate on me. And by the time we get to “Pandemie,” I have to wonder who the other vocalist is in the band that keeps with lead singer Jochen Hamper so tightly. As I’m starting to find myself more and more offput by the improper balancing and mixing of the record, I decide to go thumbing through their band bios and promo paperwork for an answer to the above question. And that is when I discover… there is no second singer.

Someone pulling such heavy backing vocal duties would surely want credit for it, but as I repeatedly scan over the 2-page and 5-member-deep history of the band, I can only find one vocalist listed: the aforementioned Jochen Hamper. Okay. So there’s no second vocalist. Okay… so if I’m hearing dual vocals, and I very clearly am – one in the left channel and one in the right – but they are only coming from one person, this can only imply one of three things…

1. Jochen Hamper is the greatest vocal-chord-manipulating Mongolian-throat-singing heavy metal vocalist in all of human history (and since the band has said to have formed in 1994 and no one has rocketed this feat to international stardom and acclaim, I’m gonna go ahead and scratch this one off the “maybe” list…)
2. It’s studio over-dubbing trickery, which means it could never be reproduced live.
3. Or he is relying on the talents of a multi-effect vocal processing unit.
   
   

We finish with the third track, and again, there’s something familiar that I can’t quite put my finger on. What is it that his voice reminds me of – it’s from something else, I know it is, something not musical. The feeling is a little harder to brush off this time, but I managed and move on to “Mehr Hass,” and I suddenly feel like I have my answer on the studio vs processor question. The tone and the theatrics and the unnaturally deep vocal range all hit me at once, and my first thought was “Ooooooooh, someone got a vocal effects processor for Xmas.” I feel cheated and I can’t tell you why. The song is good though, but just as you start to feel something good about it, it ends. (One of the better tracks and it stops dead at 1:17 in length.) I feel robbed and cheated twice inside of a minute. That’s… almost impressive.

Everything finally clicks for me on the final track – also the title track: “Mortuus Est I.” The vocal effects are so strong and overbearing and undeniable. You listen to his Germanic ex Latin playhouse production speech that goes on for way too goddamn long, and you realize how forced it all sounds. And then everything falls into place: the generic and inoffensive band name, the effect-laden vocals, their poorly-applied Dollar Store corpse paint - none of it feels genuine. It feels like someone took the template of the death metal Beatles and gave us this death metal Monkees arrangement in response. And finally, after five full tracks, I know what this voice reminds me of…       it’s Senator Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith.

Indeed, the only element missing from the opening diatribe of this last song is a short and halting exclamation to “execute Order 66.” The guitars here are beautiful, even if mixed too far to the back, but the insincerity of it all has soured me on the entire experience. I start the album over from the beginning, with the new thoughts permeating my brain, and I discover how fake it sounded from the very start – even :04 into the opening song.

I would very much like to be wrong about all this, but after a continual scanning and quick trip through to the Metal Archives, these opinions are only reaffirmed time and time again. Now, I could very well see this appealing to a certain audience. There are plenty of people not worried about authenticity, or aren’t bothered by autotune or replicating effects - millions even, if Beyoncé’s sales numbers are to be believed. But for me – I’ve gotta pass. There are too many bands out there, with devilish voices, that pour blood and spirit into everything they do, that deserve our attention before we should ever give it to a (corpse) paint-by-number band. I look at their photo again and realize how Photoshopped some of the images are. Jesus.

I take my headphones off, and though the album itself was less than twenty minutes in total length, two times over meant I was now surrounded by an entirely different cross-section of multi-national world-weary travelers. Again, I listen to their conversations; one in English, a few in Chinese, Russian, even a couple from the band’s native Germany. I comfort myself in how genuine these people seemed, and knowing that when I hear two voices talking, they are, in fact, coming from two different people.

UPDATE: There IS a friggen cheap video game called Torment of Souls!