Unearthly Rites are a Finnish death metal band and this is their second album.
Tortural Symphony of the Flesh is the 40-minute follow up to 2024’s Ecdysis, bringing us another filth-ridden slab of death/crust/sludge/grind/doom from Unearthly Rites. Strap yourself in, and get ready for something really nasty.
Unearthly Rites attack their material with grim vigour. The music is raw and heavy, with disgusting vocals that sound like they’re stripping the bone marrow out of the world. It’s a putrid feast of old-school death metal and crustgrind, mixed with tar-thick sludge and colossal doom. Across these ten tracks you’ll be assailed by hideous walls of distortion, huge crushing riffs, sharp frenzied solos, corrosive blasting assaults, macabre atmospheric workouts, and serrated crust-powered venom. This toxic mix of styles is an effective one that allows the band to spread their diseased tendrils across the land, corrupting and destroying with gleeful abandon.
At least, those are the nightmare visions that this collection of brutal songs evokes. In essence, Tortural Symphony of the Flesh offers up the sort of death metal extremity that’s engaging and potent. The absorption of the various influences into Unearthly Rites’ melting pot is thorough and complete, making for a record that will appeal to fans of death metal old and new. Assuming you’ve had your shots, as this is violently infectious stuff.
The only obvious complaint is, like almost all bands, they’ve fallen foul of Pointless Interlude Syndrome, manifesting here in the too-long A Stygian Winterscape. It’s certainly not a bad track, but it is superfluous in an album context. This especially noticeable when the title track rears its devastating head straight after it, all massive thunderous presence and wailing guitars. There’s another one later on, (Not for the Weak), but at least it is short.
Aside from these missteps, this is a very good album. Tortural Symphony of the Flesh may be brutal, harsh, and unforgiving, but it’s also really damn enjoyable. Unearthly Rites have built on the gains made by their debut album, exceeding it easily, and showing the world they’re worth paying some attention to.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 