So here’s the deal: bored as fuck sitting at home, a few weeks ago I decided to get off my ass to go to a gritty bar in deep West Oakland to check out a young and very talented local black metal called Xenotaph, who ruled by the way. Xenotaph was supporting some really forgettable touring black metal bands from the East Coast that were swinging through town, and who sucked big time, but it had been my intention for a while to see them, so I got off my ass and headed out to check them out and have a few beers with my best friend. Little did I know that opening the night was another local young black metal called Torture Chamber, and this is what my sorry eyes had to see as this insane band performed.
Torture Chamber are essentially a nasty circle of friends: two dudes from Xenotaph as the rhythm section, singer and guitarist Connor Allen, a sixteen year old (yeah you read that right) kid from Concord CA, and his buddy Voldr on lead guitar. What I had to see made me a bit sick, a bit amused but over all made me love Torture Chamber immediately. Sixteen year old Connor was screeching into his mic like a rabid raccoon and shredding his axe like a pro, covered head to toe in corpsepaint, surrounded by chains and candles, and busting out the meanest, most vile and fucking cacophonous black metal you could think of. Impossible to believe this kid is barely in high school and that his bandmates average nineteen years of age. Added to that, at a certain point the dude completely lost it, and in a fit of malevolent rage he jumped off stage grabbed a half gallon of cow blood that he had brought with him in a water jug, chugged the whole damn thing down in a millisecond, and then proceeded to go and aimlessly sack a few poor bystanders in the ribs, all for no fucking reason. No big deal, no one got hurt and everyone seemed to appreciate the anger and genuine nasty fucking grittiness of this band and how overall direct, honest and bullshit-free they are. These antics may not rub everyone the right way, but the truth is that I had never seen someone so young have such a powerful grasp on such a borderline and unfriendly musical genre like raw black metal.
As they played their malevolent, thorn-covered, demented and decaying music, I could see the unusual talent they displayed for their age, the understanding of the edgy ethics they embraced, and over all I could feel the love of these kids for what they do. Torture Chamber may be young, still inexperienced and unknown, but their shit is more TRVE and heartfelt than 99% of other bullshit metal bands out there that have been around for decades now and have won Grammys and whatever else that is meaningless in this stupid world. I remember where I was when I was sixteen. Definitely not where Connor and his homies are right now, but I wish I had been. Check out their awesome demo Into the Void streaming herein that came out earlier this year and support these kids any way you can, they fucking deserve it.
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