Despite featuring members of bands like Marduk, Pan-Thy Monium, Edge of Sanity, and Incapacity, and my love of all things Stockholm sounding, I never quite sunk my teeth into Rotten Death, the 2011 debut from this old school Swedish death metal group. Whether it’s the fact I was still reeling from the debut from Entrails and numerous other high quality retro death metal releases or that it’s just an ‘OK’ effort, it just never truly hit me. Thankfully, the follow up, Death Awaits, makes a marked improvement over the debut and while still a far from elite example of the genre, is a solid romp down Stockholm’s dusty, storied past.

Though armed with the all too nostalgic and familiar mid range buzz, Tormented reside at the more d-beat, crusty, dusty and ‘fun’ end of the spectrum, with a more punky Autopsy visage here and there, (i.e. Death Breath, Sorcery). There is a solid mix of galloping, cantering classic styled Stockholm numbers with a plethora of riffs plucked from the ranks of Entombed, Dismember and Grave (notably “I.O.T.D.”, “Insane With Dread”, “Black Sky”), as well as a few crawling, sickly, groovier passages as heard on “To Spill Her Blood”, “Into the Crypts of Death” and “In the Presence of Death”. None of it is pure brilliance or mind blowingly good, Bloodbath or Entrails this is not, but it does a good job of not trying too hard to be retro, while still delivering something honest from a bygone era in an enjoyable, no frills album.

No intros, no spooky synths, no interludes, hardly any solos, just musty, dusty riffs, laughably old school lyrics, rowdy drums, a throaty understated, latter LG Petrov vocal attack make the album work for all its 40 minute (though it seems much shorter) stripped down simplicity. If you go into this expecting anything more, you’ll be disappointed. If you simply hit play and revel in the likes of the sneakily catchy “I.O.T.D.” or “Blood Orgy” for what it is, you’ll hear an enjoyable if generic old school Swedish death metal album along the lines of Rogga Johansson’s many similar projects (Revolting, Megascavenger, Ribspreader, The Grotesquery).

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