Guest Post: Bert Banana Tackles Testicular Torture
When given the opportunity to review Sadomagikal Seducer’s demo Testicular Torture, it was an automatic “Yes”. The album is titled Testicular Torture…it must be good. Whether in a good good way or good lolbuttz way. However, after several listens of this sleazy, raw black metal, leaves me a little conflicted.
The album art is promising and give us a good idea of what we’re diving into. Some dude strapped to a chair surrounded by women in leather and HOLY SHIT! IS SHE HOLDING A KNIFE TO HIS FUCKING DICK?! Sorry about your luck, son…these chicks mean business. Typical ritual scene outside of the fact that dick is going to be sacrificed for Satan. The black and pink combo is nice on the eyes and rather refreshing. It’s a nice departure from the cliched black and white album art that’s been plaguing black metal forever. It’s rather amazing how much of difference one change (in this case white to pink) can make to a rather typical scene. In this case though, being fixated on that change has gotten me to stare at knife being held at someone’s genitals for the past 5 minutes. *crosses legs* It’s a little nerve wracking.
A track by track breakdown won’t be necessary for this. You have 4 tracks and they are all relatively the similar in sound and structure. It’s got a vibe to it that I would expect from an occult-themed grindhouse movie. Is very doomy/noisy black metal. It has a vintage sound to it. I can appreciate that. The lo-fi adds to that atmosphere, giving it a rather gritty and filthy sound so it. The vocals are really distorted and fuzzy but has a bit of a whimsical feel to them, especially in the 3rdtrack, Worship of the Urinal Sabbath (part II) where you get these piercing screams that give the impression that the vocalist is teeter that line of losing her mind. Outside of atmosphere building though, the instrumentations are rather uninteresting and lack intensity. The drums are rather flat, the guitars riffs are not really engaging, and the bass is rather muddled. There are parts here and there that have a bit of intensity but because of the production, those intense parts lose some of that edge.
I don’t have good comparisons for this because this is a side of black metal that I’m not familiar with. With that said, I enjoy the vibe/atmosphere that they’ve built but that lo-fi acts of a double edge sword. You get a cool atmosphere, but at the cost of intensity. I feel the latter tracks are the better tracks when listened to on their own. However, while I can’t see myself listening to this on my record player after day’s work, I would absolutely be down to drop the coin to see this live. I feel like this is the type of sound that more fitting in a live setting, at some seedy bar and be entertaining and interesting.
Overall, there’s a good foundation here. Sadomagikal Seducer has figured out their sound and there’s lots of room to experiment. It’s just a matter of diversifying a bit and developing that punch to draw the wandering mind of the listener back. However, there’s enough here in the material to make for an enjoyable live set. Which is something I’d weigh a little heavier given that this is their first demo.
