Torture Agenda Catalyst for the New Homo Sapien cassette
Yet another unknown band knocking at my door just before Christmas, asking for a merciful review that would pave their way for glory. TORTURE AGENDA is from Buffalo, and the first impression of them is one of evil roughness. We are not talking about the pretense of rawness that many bands revel in these days—no, TORTURE AGENDA is genuinely raw, primal, and probably paying the studio by the hour so that they did not arse around during the session and arrive late to a goat sacrifice or somethig. I enjoy this more than I thought I would. The band is fast and the songwriting is simple (if not basic), not unlike early extreme metal back when it was still highly influenced by hardcore punk, like demo-era POSSESSED or SEPULTURA when they still had acne. But TORTURE AGENDA is a punk band, and they also have that rotten crust vibe, especially in the aggression of the female vocals (maybe like EXCREMENT OF WAR’s?). The overall threatening primitiveness is, I’d suggest, an aesthetic choice, and given the template, it works. I am not sure I could listen to a whole LP, but the six-song tape format is appropriate. I love the artwork, it has that ’80s serious cheesiness that defined extreme metal’s visuals. However, what is the person in the background holding in their Bandcamp profile picture? It looks like a paint roller.