Band:	Torn Apart
Album:	Craving Pale Flesh
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	April 09, 2007
A review by:	Baz Anderson

01. Slaughtered By Hand
02. The Impaler
03. Craving Pale Flesh
04. Morbid Penetration

Sometimes when you just hear one song from a band you just know you are going to like them. This is what happened with me and one of Sweden's very promising and new death metal bands Torn Apart. Forming only two years ago the band now have their first official release in the form of this short MCD to give us a taste of things, hopefully, to come.

Great guitar work, great growling vocals and chugging drums contribute towards what is great about this band. These guys have obviously been practising a lot and are actually talented as well as every track on this CD is performed very well. "Slaughtered By Hand" is probably the most average track on the CD but it does its job by adjusting our ears towards their style of death metal that becomes more prominent as we progress through the CD. The two best tracks, "The Impaler" and especially the really great title track "Craving Pale Flesh" enable us to hear what this band are capable of at this early stage in their musical lives. Great guitar work, not exactly a melody but the guitar work on "The Impaler" especially give the music a really good tune to hum along to and get caught in your head. The main thing that I haven't mentioned so far that makes the band so great is that the music has so much of a groove to it, you can really get into it bopping your head along or air drumming or whatever you please that brings you closer to the music - this is really accessible material and very very enjoyable. Last track "Morbid Penetration" opens with a Mortician style recording of some voice and just acts as the confirmation for everything I have said about the CD. The CD is produced very well, we can hear the drums, we can hear the guitars and bass and we can hear the great vocals, basically we hear everything that we want to hear very clearly.

Of negative things I can't really think of a great deal. The opening track "Slaughtered By Hand" is the weakest track and may sound a little shaky. The drums stay at a pretty constant methodical pace so maybe it may be good to hear something with a little more pace to it, but it is this constant machine like pace that backs the band's really great groovy death metal sound, so maybe they should only look into diversifying if it sounds right, because it still sounds great how it is. Of course length is always a disappointing thing, this MCD only lingers around the quarter of an hour mark, but at least fifteen minutes of quality is better than half an hour of drivel.

If you enjoy death metal with a good groove then you can't miss this band, keep an eye on Torn Apart. You can hear a couple of tracks from this CD at their myspace page here. You definitely shouldn't be disappointed by giving this band a good go.