Torture Killer has an almost fairytale-like history. They started out around 2002 as a group of friends playing Six Feet Under and Obituary cover songs. As a matter of fact the band name, Torture Killer is the title of a track from the “Maximum Violence” album from SFU. Knowing all this it’s no real surprise that their debut “For Maggots To Devour” was considered the ultimate SFU tribute/rip-off.

To make things even better: when they were in need of a singer for the upcoming second album Chris Barnes stepped up to claim that place. Chris Barnes is of course the singer of…you guessed….Six Feet Under! I think the Torture Killer guys must have shit their pants when they heard his offer.
The name Chris Barnes attached to Torture Killer was enough to convince Metal Blade Records to sign the band; not bad for a young ex-cover band he?

Where the latest SFU albums suffer under the more adventurous experiments of and a flat dull production by Barnes (think of he utter horrible “Amerika The Brutal”) “Swarm!” sounds fresh and brutal.

The production was also the hands of Barnes and he has done a far better job than on his main band. The guitar sound is old school, like early SFU and the grunts are how they were meant to be: disgusting and stomach churning.

There will always be critics who will judge Torture Killer on their past playing covers and the comparison with SFU. I of course make this comparison as well but I think that “Swarm!” contains some quality headbanging material that blasts later SFU releases away. The great cover painting by another legend, Wes Benscoter is the cherry on the pie or, to stick to the subject, the fly on the corpse.