Torture Rack embraces this aspect of music with their hard hitting death metal sound.
Their leftist political stance and lyrics (or song titles; they don’t feature actual lyrics) garnered them the admiration of fans who had become disenchanted with Cephalotripsy’s often overtly violent misogyny.
What is it?
Music has long been used by torturers as an effective way of psychologically harming prisoners. According to reports, prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who were subjected to torture were forced to listen to loud music for weeks or even months as part of the torture regime – whether classical music, pop, rock and metal songs were played – classical music being the preferred genre while heavy metal and punk bands such as Metallica Rage Against the Machine Deicide being the most frequently featured artists used as torture instruments.
Torture Rack is a brutal death metal band who specialize in playing on the more extreme end of death metal music, taking cues from bands like Suffocation, Dying Fetus and Severe Torture for inspiration in their sound. While their style may be brutal at times there are also elements of technicality present within it.
Though relatively new to the scene, they have quickly made an impressionful statement in hardcore metal music. Last fall they were known only by dialed-in moshers; until their self-released 2023 album Enduring Freedom went public and created an instant fanbase. Since then they have released multiple releases and tours in preparation.
Torture’s antimilitary themes are especially pertinent today in light of America’s unwavering support of Israel’s genocide against Palestine. Torture’s music serves as the soundtrack for a crowd-killing bootcamp; their live shows are legendary – their shows feature some of the most violent pits seen anywhere. Additionally, they’re currently working on their fourth album which will explore war crimes and human atrocities.
Origins
Death metal emerged during the 1980s with bands such as Slayer, Morbid Angel and Possessed leading the charge. Their style featured uptempo rhythms, fast guitar solos and raspy vocals similar to Kreator, Sodom and Destruction from Germany’s underground music scene – an influence which translated to death metal taking on its speed, aggression and dark lyrical themes from traditional thrash metal while adding dark themes with more aggressive vocal delivery.
By the 1990s, several notable bands helped shape death metal into what it is today. Death founder Chuck Schuldiner pioneered uncompromising speed metal with albums like Human (1991) and Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious (1992), leading the way to melodic death metal (melodeath). Carcass, God Macabre, Entombed Dismember and Tiamat were some of the bands known for this style of melodic death metal music.
Another significant development for the genre was the rise of Florida death metal scene, spearheaded by bands such as Obituary and Massacre. This movement was heavily influenced by Sweden’s metal scene with bands like Nihilist (later split into Entombed and At the Gates) and Grotesque contributing significantly.
Technical death metal is a subgenre of progressive metal that combines fast tempos and aggressive vocals of thrash metal with the intricate rhythms and often shifting or overlapping time signatures of progressive metal. It often incorporates growls, blastbeats, acoustic parts and can even incorporate jazz or experimental rock influences. Artists such as Pestilence, Cynic, Edge of Sanity Between the Buried and Me Necrophagist Gorguts have all been credited with pioneering this subgenre of death metal death metal.
Styles
Death metal bands contrast their tunes with the soft and sentimental sounds favored by pop and country musicians by employing an intense style that can often be rough, brutal and dissonant. A typical band setup typically includes two guitarists, a bass player, and an intense drummer playing blast beats; guitar techniques used such as palm muting and tremolo picking may also be utilized when playing these songs; drumming is often very aggressive too!
Death metal vocals can range from coarse roars and growls to harsh snarls and growls, often mistaken for vocal fry, which involves overtone singing at lower registers but actually refers to high-pitched screaming instead. Some death metal bands even employ Cookie Monster vocals – an irreverent nod towards Sesame Street character!
Inherit Disease are one of the many death metal bands using the traditional USDM style to create some truly unholy music. Their album Ephemeral features 39 minutes of brutal, relentless death metal riffs. Furthermore, there are even some melodic touches which provide some welcome respite from this meatgrinder of sound.
Death metal fans can be unwavering devotees, though their passion may not always be appreciated by non-fans. Psychology professor William Forde Thompson conducted an experiment comparing 48 death metal fans and 97 non-fans, concluding that people who enjoy this marginal music tend to be perceived as more violent and aggressive, having lower empathy levels, than those who do not appreciate its appeal.
Music torture worked similarly. In some instances, the CIA used specific songs to wear down prisoners and increase the odds they would surrender more easily. They typically chose rock, country and metal genres because these genres are less widely popular elsewhere – thus being unfamiliar to prisoners who might face other forms of treatment such as pop and hip-hop music.
Influences
Death metal might seem extreme at times, but it isn’t. Anthony Braxton’s compositions for 100 tubas and orchestras on different planets as well as various avant-garde “classical” experiments in the 20th century outdo it in terms of radicalism.
Cattle Decapitation and Cryptopsy provide prime examples of extreme death metal music and culture, both musically and conceptually. While the former’s overtly anti-human themes and bizarre video concepts set them apart from other brutal death metal acts, Cryptopsy stands out with their groundbreaking super-brutal sound as a unique defining characteristic of their genre.
Although death metal can be intense, many fans find its sounds enjoyable. One reason may be its combination of aggression with songwriting skills; with its abrupt tempo and key changes as well as chromatic chord progressions offering up numerous musical ideas and structures.
Growling vocals have long been a hallmark of metal music, often used to match its aggressive lyrical content and add an intimate element. Growls may be raspy or deep; sometimes even screaming.
Unusual registers of human vocals add an unnerving and distinctive quality to death metal music, creating an eerie yet distinctive soundscape. Death metal bands use this to achieve more realistic sounds while also adding depth to tracks. Lyrical content also plays a large role in death metal music torture genre, with bands often singing about war crimes, sexual violence and other uncomfortable topics in their songs – though some might find these lyrics upsetting; nonetheless it should be remembered that death metal music is simply art and should remain such for everyone listening in listening in terms of art forms such as death metal music torture genre.
Conclusions
Music as torture is an ethical issue with which current political and social climates are highly sensitive, but often its use as torture falls prey to simplistic discourses that focus on certain genres which appear particularly violent due to formal structure or lyrics which do not always reflect reality or accurately portray how music and violence coexist.
This paper investigates the use of death metal music to intensify and amplify physical pain during interrogation – an increasingly prevalent practice used by American forces during the War on Terror. Our findings indicate that death metal’s music, lyrics and stage personae have an incredible effect on how people experience pain.
Musically, death metal can be defined by abrupt tempo and count changes, lightning-fast drumming and lyrics delivered with deep growling vocal delivery. This style typically features two guitars and a drum kit equipped with two bass drum pedals; however, other instruments may also be added such as keyboards, harmonicas or electronic instruments like loops or samplers.
Death metal first emerged as an outgrowth of thrash metal when musicians sought to push its boundaries further and experiment with their sound. While many old school thrash metal bands such as Testament continued with traditional sounds, others such as Carcass and Suffocation became more extreme – with lyrics detailing decapitations, dismemberment and other bodily horrors.
In the early 90’s, bands began merging extreme metal styles with progressive rock to form what would later be known as prog-death. Bands like Finland’s Amorphis and Dan Swano from Sweden pioneered this genre while pushing speed limits while adding orchestral arrangements and progressive chord progressions into their songs.