PREMIERE: Torturerama – Reap What You Sow
To paraphrase Private Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket, “We are in a world of shit”. Every day is filled with at least a few new horrors by a cruel elite ruling class that keeps getting richer while shitting on all of our heads. While it feels like there’s no end in sight, we can still cling to hope; the hope that the purveyors of unimaginable cruelty and a voracious, all-consuming appetite for money get theirs in the end.
Belgian death metallers Tortureama (great name, by the way) offer their own brand of brutal retribution with their new track “Reap What You Sow”. You can practically hear the bile being regurgitated into the face of a CEO with each bark, every mean riff, and stomping drums. This song is like an anthem for revenge on a world that keeps trying to grind us down. Sometimes, you just need to grind the world back.
The band explains:
“Reap What You Sow” is about a bastard who spent years doing crimes, screwing people over, and somehow walked away smiling because he’s protected by the laws of the elite. The song is our way of restoring balance to the universe. You created a world of shit, now you’re going to eat what you sow. The original title was “Eat Shit and Die.” As a joke at rehearsals we renamed it “eat chips and fries”. During a gig at a venue called “The Elpee”, here in Belgium, there was a guy in the crowd who took the original title very seriously. From the first notes we played ’till the last song , all evening , he kept yelling: “EAT SHIT AND DIE!” Between songs: “EAT SHIT AND DIE!” between the songs of the next band: “EAT SHIT AND DIE!”. We started wondering if he was threatening somebody, or was simply announcing his dinner plans. It was very funny. After some artistic discussions and at least five rounds at the bar, we decided to change the title to “Reap What You Sow”. The song contains some pounding doomy riffs and drums like a hammer from hell. It breathes the atmosphere of a Swiss winter in 1983
evoking the dark and primal spirit of Celtic Frost as it rumbles relentlessly forward, at a steady pace unto destruction!
That frites-eating bastard ruined a good song title. Regardless, listen for yourself and fantasize about driving a steamroller over a billionaire:
Who knew revenge had so much groove? I’ll now being saying “Eat shit and die” all day. I usually do that anyway, but now I’ll be doing it with a little more style.
Torturerama’s album The Elaborate Theatre of the Macabre is out on July 27th via Memento Mori.
