Artist: Tormentador / Sex Messiah
Country: Brazil / Japan
Label: Sex Desire Records
Formats: Split 7″ EP
Year: 2024
This release may be a bit older, but as a fan of the 7” EP format and the underground qualities of both bands on this split EP, it seems more than natural to discuss it anyway now that it is here on my turntable. A nice little piece of black wax from the Japanese Sex Desire Records, run by Sex Messiah’s main woman, that combines the brutality of South American Black/Death Metal of Tormentador with Sex Messiah’s own take on the same style.
First up is Tormentador. This is the follow-up to the great ‘Morte Negra’, their Nuclear War Now! Productions released debut album from 2022, and although ‘Totalitarismo’ was exclusively recorded for this split release in 2023, it feels like not much has changed. Compared to the full-length album though, this new track is a bit faster and aligns much more with the Brazilian Black/Death Metal tradition. With Armando Leprous behind the drums that perhaps is not much of surprise, since he was the skinsman of Sarcófago, Mutilator and Holocausto and is now active in Satanicristo and Insulter; nuff said. The slightly darker and menacing sound of ‘Morte Negra’ worked tremendously and added a bit of a Ross Bay Cult flair to the music, but this more furious and frantic approach fits the band equally as well.
Sex Messiah, on the flipside, gives us another demonstration of the slow but sure shift in style. The more thrashy spirit of the earlier recording are now almost completely vanished and traded for a thorough raw Black/Death Metal sound in the right Latin- and North American tradition. The combination of the eerie melody, the gnashing riffs and the wild vocals of Moenos add much to the overall atmosphere of profound old school Blackened Death Metal. Besides the obvious comparisons to, say, early Possessed and Necrovore, ‘Priest In Suicide Forest’ has a deeply doomy character, delivered and proven by the slower riffs and the aforementioned eerie lead. The older Sex Messiah releases all had their charm and did what they were intended to do, but on a more personal note, this is a musical direction that’s closer to my taste.
