Interview with death metal band from Finland - TORMENTOR TYRANT.
Answered M.Malignant (bass, vocals) and S.Envenom (vocals, guitars), thank you!
Recenze/review - TORMENTOR TYRANT - Excessive Escalation of Cruelty (2025):
Ave TORMENTOR TYRANT! Hello to the Finnish underground. I hope all is well with you. It should be, you have the first long-playing great album of your career this year. I have to admit, it literally put me up against the wall. It's dark, it's energetic, it cuts with a knife's edge. It's very telling that you've done a great job and a great deal of talent too. How do you feel about the new record in relation to your first EP? Where did you want to go and how do you think the recordings are different?
M: Greetings Jakub! Sorry for taking that long to answer the interview but straight into business it is! The first EP (or our Demo as we like to call it) had remnants of riffs that we had actually written already years and years before, but had not found a home in any of our other bands. Hell - there’s actually 2 riffs on the song “All-Seeing Eye” that I wrote when I was 16, and the song needed that sort of naive youthful abandon so these riffs were exhumed for that purpose. The Demo was also more of an experiment on where the band would be going and figuring out our style. First steps into existence, so to say.
The new album is however completely new material, written just for this purpose. The song order is also almost the order they were written in, excluding “Tartarean Iron Grip” (track #4 on the album) which I remember being the first new song we wrote for this album. You can also somewhat hear the evolution of the band's sound and identity progressing as the album moves from start to finish.
Soundwise the recordings are somewhat different too. The Demo was recorded live (except for vocals and that one guitar solo) and is more sharp and cold sounding. The full-length was tracked instrument by instrument and sounds a lot more fat, really heavy and in-your-face aggressive. Both production styles have their advantages. Perhaps the next one will be something in the middle of these approaches. Remains to be seen!
"Excessive Escalation of Cruelty" has all the attributes of good death. For me personally, this is a record that I love coming back to. How was it made? How do you compose new TORMENTOR TYRANT material?
M: Everything in TT is composed and arranged face-to-face in the rehearsal room. No home-made programmed-drum demos or some noodly guitarPRO files are accepted. Every member is mandated to bring in RIFFs to the rehearsal room where they are subjected to a vetting process where only the good and most suitable riffs are accepted or modified, and the weak riffs are scourged and laughed at in a mocking fashion. It gets quite brutal at times. The surviving riffs are then arranged together with the full group to create suitable patterns to make it into a song.
Who is signed for recording and mastering? I have to confirm that the sound literally kills. It still makes me turn up the volume on the hi-fi tower. You have a sound that is harsh, raw and at the same time dark and animalistic. How was it working with you? What studio did you record in and how did everything go?
M: Recording and mixing was done by me, the final mastering was left to outside forces. For this the label recommended Carlo “The Hand of Doom” Altobelli. Recording is something I have always been interested in and try to evolve with my gear and skills with each passing year. My methods are by no means perfect and usually rather raw sounding - but this works for the music we do.
An integral part and kind of an extra bonus for fans today is the CD. You released it on the Everlasting Spew Records label and it comes with a demonic cover. The author is Roni Ärling. How did you choose the theme and how does it relate to the music on the release?
M: I’m “old school” in that sense that only the physical release is the actual album and the digital version is the bonus one - something you have possibly instant access to on the go, as a sort of “fast food”. So if I really like the music I need to own it on physical media. But I’m a product of my times, and have been collecting music since the 90s in various formats. Sure, I don’t buy as much these days as I used to. I’m also starting to run out of space to store more CDs or vinyl!
But relating to this, I think the visual presentation of an album is absolutely important. That’s why we wanted to have a more representing and well drawn cover on our album than on our EP. The EP artwork was crudely drawn by me, but we wanted someone with more skills this time around and I instantly thought of Roni Ärling who is a tattoo artist but also a fellow musician in multiple bands like Lie in Ruins or Perdition Winds. The artwork is the inferno of twisted faces of torment, and it very much and deliberately draws allusions to “Altars of Madness” artwork and something that could be perhaps found on the Doom 1 PC game from the early 90s. It also instantly tells you what the music is about, and leaves no room for any subtleties.
I've been roaming the underworld for over thirty years and I actually go to Finland for music just in case. I think we have similar moods and tastes when it comes to metal. I like your bands a lot and I follow your scene very closely. Maybe I'm a bit jealous, we only have a few death metal bands here that are worth it. How do you explain that death metal is so successful in your country? How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels?
M: I don’t really know what is the cause. There has always been a strong metal underground in Finland, and music and playing instruments has always been supported and encouraged for kids by providing rehearsal rooms from local youth centers. Why Death Metal? Perhaps it just resonates with the people here. Not sure how it is also these days, but back in my youth there was also always a bit of competitive attitude between bands - which kind of kept things in check, and each band strived to be better than the next. This makes things stronger and keeps your edge sharp. Maybe this contributes to the quality of the bands as well.
The scene and fans seem to be in a pretty good state, with lots of new young blood injected into it which is great. Keeps things alive. Not aware of that many Finnish labels though. There’s a few smaller ones that come to mind but that’s about it.
You play death metal influenced by the old school. Nowadays a band can't really avoid comparisons, but I would like to know how the idea to form TORMENTOR TYRANT came about, who was and is your role model and where do you want to take your band? Are you tempted by big festivals abroad, for example, are you willing to tour with a more famous pack?
M: There is no big story - the stars just aligned for us to form the band. All three of us (S. Envenom - guitar / vocals, J. Carnage - drums, and myself M.Malignant - bass / vocals) met each other when playing gigs together with our other bands Solothus and Corpsessed. We got to talking and discovered our shared love for Deicide. This led to us playing some covers at a rehearsal room, but after a while we decided it would be way more interesting to compose our own material instead. At that point I switched over from guitar to bass, and our intention was to make the band work as a power-trio - the less people, the less hassle.
We are heavily influenced by various styles of metal - the US Morrisound type stuff like early Deicide, Morbid Angel, Nocturnus, or the more gloomier death metal like Incantation, Immolation, Autopsy or early 90s Finnish Death Metal, some Swedish bands, Cogumelo Records type Brazilian stuff or bands like Mortem from Peru, Other 90s 2nd wave black metal, british death metal like early Carcass, Paradise Lost, or then again classic stuff like Slayer or Sepultura, Celtic Frost / Hellhammer, Morbid Saint, Sodom, Destruction, Dark Angel and a endless list of other stuff.
Where do we want to take this band? Whatever seems suitable and what opportunities come our way. There is no big plan of domination, we just do what comes natural to us without any huge pressures or expectations from anybody. It’s all about creating something you enjoy yourself. Touring? Why not, if a good opportunity crosses our paths, but we are not actively pursuing it, and in the end - music will never be our dayjob, but an important hobby and an outlet of creativity we will never give up, but also never be monetarily reliant on. This also allows us to do basically whatever we want with the music, and not follow some path that would be profitable.
When I started my site seven years ago, I had a vision of trying to support bands that I thought weren't as visible. Let the world know about them. I think I've been pretty successful at that, at least judging by the response. How do you approach promotion? Do you leave it up to the label or do you send out CDs yourself for various reviews? I buy albums that I really enjoy, for example. How are you? Are you also a fan who likes to support your colleagues often? Do you go to concerts? Do you party?
M: We do some forms of promotion by sending out CDs for reviews, doing interviews and of course the label does the major legwork in this department. And like I said in the previous answer, I still collect physical CDs - especially from bands that I support or are our friends.
I do admit that I go to gigs way less than say 20 years ago, and partying is also a lot more seldom these days - but never completely out of the question, and I definitely will enjoy a few beers too many with good friends at a great underground metal gig if the suitable opportunity arises.
On the one hand, a band starting out today has a lot of opportunities to make their presence known, but on the other hand, there are a huge number of bands and fans get lost in them. A lot of people are just downloading mp3s from the internet and spitting venomous spittle on Facebook instead of going to a gig. How does modern technology affect you as TORMENTOR TYRANT? What do you think about downloading music, google metal, streaming music etc.?
S: Suffering comes in many forms, digital, analog, electric, blunt force. Tormentor Tyrant uses all of these to reach the wider world. Download and stream all you can before the coming age of darkness. Venomous Internet spittle just fuels the flames behind the eyes of the immortal and ageless Tyrant. You, the reader of this text: you are no longer ignorant of the existence of the future enslaver of mankind. You will be punished for every action that you did not take to hasten the empire of cruelty. Mark these words.
I like to ask musicians what death metal means to them. How would they define it, is it more of a philosophy and lifestyle for them or "just" relaxation. What does it mean to you? How do you perceive and experience it?
S: Death Metal is just one form of The True Suffer-Lord: Tormentor Tyrant comes in many forms. He precedes time itself, exists in this material universe, and nowhere at the same time. His manifestations echo through history, holy books warn about the impending doom and the nightmares that humanity has collectively seen is just an echo of the true horror that awaits humanity. Tormentor Tyrant is Death. Tormentor Tyrant is Death Metal.
Finally, a classic but important question. What are TORMENTOR TYRANT's plans in the coming months? Where can we see you in concert?
M: Rehearse, write new riffs, craft new songs, and prepare for our upcoming gigs. Dates and events to be revealed later.
Thank you very much for the interview. I wish not only the new album a lot of success and may the ranks of your fans expand as much as possible. I'll look forward to seeing you live somewhere and may you thrive both musically and on a personal level. I'm off to get "Excessive Escalation of Cruelty" in my head again!
M: Thank you for the support and for doing this interview Jakub! Cheers!
Recenze/review - TORMENTOR TYRANT - Excessive Escalation of Cruelty (2025):
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