Sometimes you don’t want anything fancy. You know, beans on toast instead of some mad chef’s creation sweated over by far too many harassed cooks struggling to hit perfection. That’s what Pain Offerings is. Plain, simple, reliable, dependable, delicious (OK, maybe not that) death metal.
There’s the slightest hint of “melodic” in there (let’s say we put some cheese on the beans on toast), but not enough to detract from the riffing brutality. The album’s generally at the faster paced end of the death metal scale, with plenty of circle pit-friendly material. “Reality – Worst Show Ever” is a prime example, with a couple of great sections for such orbital activities linked together with some headbangingly heavy slower sections, undercut by haunting guitar. “Endquester” is far more brutal, being pretty much crushing from beginning to end.
With eight tracks (plus an outro), there’s plenty to get your chiselled teeth into, beans and otherwise.
Pain Offerings is the sixth album from Those Who Bring The Torture and it’s a really enjoyable outing. Out now and limited to 500 jewel case copies (I’m sure there’s a digital release as well), it’s a great addition to any death metal collection. And for some reason writing this review has made me hungry…
Those Who Bring The Torture: myspace
