Snuffed Freaks and Decomposed Cadavers: The Legend of Torsofuck

WARNING: The following post is NSFW as fuck. If you’re easily offended, it might be better if you sit this one out.

Sometime in the year 1995, the great country of Finland gave anal birth to one of the greatest/shittiest bands ever to walk (stalk?) the Earth. That band was Torsofuck. An absolutely repellent combination of the most offensive, knuckle-dragging aspects of slamming brutal death metal and goregrind, the band blazed a path of musical and lyrical deviance off and on for nearly a decade-and-a-half before finally, mercifully calling it a day for good back in 2009, not counting a posthumous limited live cassette release that was only purchased by pale-skinned basement dwellers that own all four pressings of Gut’s Odour of Torture and can’t wait to tell you all about it.

But what did Torsofuck leave us with after almost fifteen years in the game? Actually, not much. A demo, two splits and a full-length is all they could muster in that length of time, but let’s face it, it can’t be easy concocting music this boneheaded/brilliant. I mean, that shit has to take effort.

Anyway, after releasing the High Level of Cannibalistic Violence demo that no one actually heard and a split with Vomitorial Corpulence that was actually heard by no one, Torsofuck finally made it big in 2002 with the Disgusting Gore and Pathology/Polymorphisms to Severe Sepsis and Trauma (that’s not a goddamn mouthful, nope, not at all), a split with the legendary Brazilian goregrinders Lymphatic Phlegm on Bizarre Leprous Productions. For those that aren’t familiar, Bizarre Leprous is like the Nuclear Blast of goregrind labels, so the world at large would finally get a chance to experience the genius of vocalist/guitarist/bassist Mikko Friberg and guitarist/drum programmer Jarkko Haapala in all it’s fucked up, repugnant glory.

Indeed, Torsofuck made the most of the of opportunity and wasted no time in taking a big steaming dump in listeners’ earholes on Disgusting Gore…, kicking things off with the utterly putrid “Fistfucking Her Decomposed Cadaver,” a song dominated by drums that sound like a pissed-off secretary in the 1950’s pounding the ever-living shit out of a typewriter and some of the most toilety toilet vocals you’re probably ever going to hear. Yes, the guitars are in there playing third fiddle to the drums and vox, mostly playing riffs that I’d refer to as “caveman riffs,” but that would be an insult to cavemen and they aren’t here to defend themselves, so that hardly seems fair. Well, except for Caveman Cult, but I don’t think those guys are even real cavemen! Talk about false advertising…

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, that’s right, the rest of Torsofuck’s side of the split goes on for three more tracks in much the same vein as “Fistfucking Her Decomposed Cadaver,” although “Craving for a Fresh Shit” does feature what might be the most inept lead guitar work in human history during it’s final stretch and “Cannibal” (a very out of character tame song title) does add some vocals that sound like a pig rooting around in its own feces to go along with the aforementioned toilet vocals, because clearly Torsofuck were all about thoughtful, nuanced songwriting.

Of course, the split with Lymphatic Phlegm was merely a rancid taste of what was to come. In 2004 Torsofuck would release their magnum opus, the shit-splattered plat du jour known as Erotic Diarrhea Fantasy. In the two years since Disgusting Pathology… the duo somehow managed to get heavier, uglier, dumber and even more disgusting, shitting out one of the sickest, most sexually depraved metal albums of all time.

“Mutilated for Sexual Purposes” begins with a porn sample that’s almost as long as the song itself before the brain-mangling morass of brutal slamming goregrind comes surging forward, covering everything in its path with buckets of blood, guts, piss and other fluids best left unmentioned. The production isn’t exactly better than that of the Lymphatic Phlegm split, but it is louder and gnarlier, with the guitars more prominent in the mix and bathed in distortion that’s so thick ‘n’ chunky you could stand a fork up in it. The kick drum still sounds pretty typewritery, but it’s pushed back in the mix this time around, making it far less irritating.

While Erotic Diarrhea Fantasy certainly benefitted from the heavier production scheme, Friberg and Haapala’s (d)evolution as both players and songwriters also played a huge part in the album’s success. Torsofuck had reached their final form here, striking a perfect, perverse balance between the lizard-brain tickling violence of brutal slamming death metal and the sewage-gurgling sickness of goregrind. I mean, this shit is right up there with Citizen Kane, Moby Dick and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in terms of artistic achievement.

Torsofuck also perfected their lyrical prowess on Erotic Diarrhea Fantasy, as evidenced by what is surely one of the greatest songs in the history of recorded music, “Raped By Elephants.” The track begins with a sample from Freddy Got Fingered (the scene where Tom Green’s character jerks off an elephant, naturally) before spewing memorable gems such as;

I sucked like a whore while I was assfucked by elephant trunk

After all it wasnt too bad at all

It took only about ten minutes and cock in my mouth started to cum

Extremely huge load of elephant sperm filled my throat and

Spurted all over my face

I was completely fucked up, but elephants had one more thing to do

All three of them huffed and puffed shits on me

Then they left me alone with my ripped asshole

I’ll never go to Africa again

Erotic Diarrhea Fantasy was Torsofuck’s final studio output and how could it not be? There’s simply no way in hell they could’ve topped such a masterpiece. In the years since its release, the album has attained something of a cult following among those that crave the the lewdest and most degenerate sounds known to man and has been reissued several times on various formats by well known underground labels such as American Line Productions, Morbid Generation Records and Gore House Productions.

At the end of the day, it’s difficult to say how or why Torsofuck were motivated to make such morally corrupt metal magic; I could only find two interviews with the band online and one appears to be in German while the other reads like two malfunctioning Twitter bots attempting to carry on a conversation, so god only knows what was going through their heads when they decided to write songs about elephant rape and anal sex with corpses. But make magic they did, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the metal scene is pretty much the worst goddamn thing to ever happen to human civilization.

Clicks, Lies and Black Metal

On November 16th, 2016, the online metal tabloid known as Metalsucks published their “manifesto” in which they very publicly announced “We will not tolerate racism, misogyny or any form of bigotry or hate speech” (because apparently it took them ten years of running a website, not to mention a good chunk of their adult lives to figure out these things are shitty).

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Metal Gods: Judas Priest and the Art of Ass-Kicking Robots

It’s a widely accepted fact that British metal legends Judas Priest helped define the sound of heavy metal as we know it today.  But what isn’t as widely acknowledged is how they also helped define the visual aesthetics of heavy metal; indeed, Priest is as  much responsible for what metal albums look like as they are for what metal albums sound like.  Although they’ve never had a single unifying theme to their artwork (ala Iron Maiden’s Eddie or Motorhead’s Snaggletooth), no less than seven of their album covers do have something very important in common: ass-kicking robots.

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THKD’s Top 15 Albums of 2017

Ah, the intro.  This is the part where most writers attempt to regale you with an account of the myriad ups and downs they experienced throughout the year.  However, most writers fail to understand one very important fundamental truth: no one cares.  So without further ado and in no particular order, here’s a list of fifteen albums that grabbed a hold of my crank and kept on yankin’ in 2017…

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25 Years of Danzig III: How the Gods Kill

All of these album anniversaries are starting to make me feel old.  But with that said, I can think of few better to celebrate than the silver anniversary of what is arguably Danzig’s masterpiece, How The Gods Kill.  I can’t remember exactly what year I bought the album, but I do remember picking it up at one of the three record stores that populated the local shopping mall (ah, the good ol’ days), bringing it home and subsequently being blown away.  It immediately struck me as one of the deepest, darkest albums I’d ever heard up to that point in my life, and given that I was still an impressionable teenager, I’d like to think it was one of the key albums that helped to propel me down the path of heavy music.

Continue reading “25 Years of Danzig III: How the Gods Kill”

Oodles of Brutals IV: Brutal-Fu, da Return

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Holy shit you guys, I haven’t done one of these brutal/tech/slam death metal roundup features since 2014!  Wasn’t this supposed to be a semi-regular feature?!  I guess 2014 was also the year that I realized I’m far too disorganized/scatterbrained to pull off regular features, so they’re more like whenever-I-feel-like-it features and apparently I haven’t felt like it in almost two years.

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The Other Misfits.

misfits

When most of us think of the Misfits, we’re thinking of the legendary Glenn Danzig-fronted lineup that walked among us from 1977 to 1983.  The band that single-handedly invented horror punk, and went on to influence a slew of heavy metal bands from Metallica to Marduk.  But what about the other Misfits?  In 1995, Misfits bassist Jerry Only and his brother Doyle re-activated the group sans Danzig after a protracted legal battle with the singer ended with Only retaining the ability to record and tour using the name, while he and Danzig split the merchandising rights.  The brothers recruited drummer Dr. Chud and vocalist Michale Graves and set out to re-establish themselves as an active band over a decade after the Misfits’ heyday.

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Metal Affective Disorder: THKD’s top 10 most depressing metal albums.

metal

According to my calendar, Winter doesn’t start until December 21st.  I call bullshit.  It’s dark when I get up to go to work in the morning, it’s dark when I get home from work and it’s freezing out.  It’s fucking Winter.  When this time of year rolls around, all I want to do is eat, sleep and listen to depressing music.  I’m not allowed to hibernate, so I cope with the darkness of the season by listening to music that’s equally dark.  Not wanting to keep the displeasure all to myself, I’ve selected ten of the most depressing albums in my Winter rotation to harsh your mellow and keep you appropriately bummed out until Spring rolls around… if you make it that long.

Continue reading “Metal Affective Disorder: THKD’s top 10 most depressing metal albums.”

Snapped Necks and Psycho Holidays: A Heavily Abridged People’s History of Groove Metal (1990 – 1999)

Among the heavy metal subgenres most likely to turn the average underground ‘head into a piping hot cup of haterade, groove metal (sometimes referred to as post-thrash, closely related to alternative metal and industrial metal) surely sits at or near the top of the list. Blamed for contributing to the death of thrash, the spawning of nu metal and for bringing scores of jock-strap-polishing meatheads into the scene (among other things), groove metal is quite possibly the most battered and beaten of the genre’s red-headed stepchildren. However, its most heinous crime in the eyes of most NWN! message board-dweller types is that it is a product of the nineties, that decade where everything went to shit for a legion of ’80s-worshipping metal miscreants, many of whom continue to dab at bitter tears with the unwashed corners of their patch vests while clutching at their Nihilist demo cassettes to this very day.

Continue reading “Snapped Necks and Psycho Holidays: A Heavily Abridged People’s History of Groove Metal (1990 – 1999)”

Ground Zero: Backlit zine #0 issue out now!

Friends, Romans, THKD readers,

Roughly 5 months ago, Brandon Duncan (whom you may know from The Sequence of Prime) contacted me with an idea; let’s start a new online metal zine. Typically I prefer to work alone, but Brandon’s enthusiasm is contagious and I’m proud to call him my friend, so there was absolutely no way I could refuse. Brandon gathered an ace design team while I hand-picked some of my favorite writers from internet metal land with the express purpose of creating something new and unique, to drag the old school metal zine into the future, come Hell or high water with an emphasis on good old-fashioned writing and design.

After 5 months of hard work, I’m proud to present to all of you the fruits of our labors in the form of Backlit #0; fifteen pages of mind-melting music, art and literature.

Backlit / 0
Inaugural Issue
Now available at backlitzine.com
Cover Art by Dan Harding

Columns:

Raping Angels in America #1 / Joshua Haun
Angry Old Men / Jordan Campbell
Helpless Child / Dan Obstkrieg
Fucking The Future / Joshua Haun
Libations in the Labyrinth Vol. 1 / Dan Obstkrieg
Words That Wound / Dan Obstkrieg
Doomsday Device / Joshua Haun

Interviews:
Interview With Jester King Brewery / The Dragon of M87
Interview With Ashencult / Jordan Campbell

Art & Fiction:
Succubus in the Attic / Nikki Guerlain
Dan Harding: The Fine Art of Horror / Brandon Duncan

STAFF:

Overlords:
Joshua Haun
Brandon Duncan

Contributing Writers:
Joshua Haun
Jordan Campbell
Danhammer Obstkrieg
The Dragon of M87

Copy Editor:
Danhammer Obstkrieg

Design:
Brandon Duncan
Philip Tyson
Spencer Walker

I hope that you will all enjoy reading the first issue of Backlit as much as we enjoyed crafting it. This is only the beginning!

http://backlitzine.com/

Worship Black Metal Cassettes: Scratching the surface of Crepusculo Negro and Rhinocervs.

In my review of Blut Der Nacht’s excellent Demo MMXI, I talked a little about the rise of cassette culture within the American black metal underground over the last few years.  Some see it as nostalgia, others see it as pure gimmickry.  I see it as a way to bring black metal back to its roots, a return to the DIY ethos, primitivism and shadowy mystique the genre was built upon.

The cassette is a cheap way of reproducing and distributing music.  I haven’t gone to the trouble of actually pricing tape production and duplication (maybe some readers can shed light on that in the comments?), but I can guarantee that it is much more cost-effective than having CDs and especially vinyl pressed.  In this respect, it is the perfect format for bands that have no interest in dealing with Heavy Metal Inc, and although black metal has long since been absorbed into the establishment, there’s no time like the present to take it back underground.  With that said, it should be noted that some cassette-based labels, specifically Crepusulo Negro and Rhinocervs (probably the two most infamous), have begun working with larger, more established labels such as Profound Lore and The Ajna Offensive to get some of their releases (Dolorvotre, Tukaaria, Odz Manouk) on CD, but this is surely due more to outside interest and demand.  These cassette releases are cheap to purchase (typically $5 – $8) and are often extremely limited, selling out in a matter of days or even hours, and therefore not always readily available.  Also, no matter how much metal fans might want to hear this stuff, many are unwilling to embrace the cassette due to its supposed limitations.  This need for wider distribution and other formats is a consequence of releasing great music that people want to hear, and it’s much better than forcing fans to go scouring the internet for often janky downloads of these sold out releases.  Of course, the fact that the music is being released on a format which many find unacceptable only adds to the clandestine nature of these bands and the music they create, and in my mind a little of that mystique dies every time I hear about this stuff coming out on CD or even vinyl.  Nonetheless, what these bands are creating is some of the most compelling modern black metal I’ve heard in years (much more on this later), and deserves to be heard and made widely available.
Continue reading “Worship Black Metal Cassettes: Scratching the surface of Crepusculo Negro and Rhinocervs.”