New Yorks’ Immortal Suffering returns with a brand new EP- Extreme Torture.  5 songs of brutal NYDM, in 18 minutes.  The perfect length of time for this release.  The band adding some new blood into the band with: Taylor Schranck on bass and Jordon Mamaluke on vocals formerly the vocalist for another NYDM band Coronary Thrombosis.  Randall Reekstin on drums and original member, and personal friend, Joe Provvisiero round out the band.

I reviewed the last few Immortal Suffering releases with their 2015 album Asylum and Preyed Upon album in 2019.  This release is the perfect amount of songs to introduce the line-up to the fanatics.  This new release ushers in a new realm of brutality and over the last several releases, I guess mainly with their return in 2013, the band began exploring a more modern death metal style.

When Immortal Suffering started in the early 90’s their demos and splits were rooted in not the typical style of NYDM, as the band incorporated doomier passages and was not one to have a plethora of slams and blast beats.  I even laid guest vocals down on “Gotten Over Her” from the Eternal Damnation 1995 demo.  A really doomy slow dirge and ultra-heavy song.

The title track of this ep starts things off with a nice little intro that along with the brutal blasting at the 33-second mark-goes right alongside the cover of the release.  This is the most brutal musical opening of any Immortal Suffering release.  The production, once again done at Full Force Studios on Long Island, actually makes this the best-sounding Immortal Suffering release to date.  New throat, Jordon Mamaluke (being Italian-if this dude’s last name is really mamaluke-this is frickin’ awesome-hopefully he doesn’t act like a mamaluke, though).  I immediately notice a shift in Immortal Suffering, whereas, I keep thinking Gorgasm for some reason, anyway Jordon is super brutal.  Laying out squeals and the most brutal vocals the band has ever had.  The vocals are putrid and filthy.  Killer slam and a mid-paced section towards the end of the tune.

“Homicidal” Rage is up next and there are massive amounts of mid-paced and thunderous double bass moments, with a killer slam at around the 1.30 section and a nice growl at the 1.50 mark, which goes right into the brutal slow-down.   This part is one of the strongest slammy parts the band has ever written.  It also goes on for quite some time.  Fans in the pit are gonna tire themselves out if they forget to pace themselves.  The song goes into a dirgier slam moment with some killer guitar riffing.  Simple, yet effective and memorable.  This song I would end their live set with and use the outro, included in the song, to end the live set.  This song is as strong as a live closer, although most bands that have been around this long will usually end their set with an old-school classic song..yet regardless, this song must be included in their live set, has to be!

“Conceived In a Crackhouse” has a great growling opening segment that has kind of a nice jumpy opening moment, which would be a cool circle pit moment.  The song goes into a brutal slam.  The double pounding drum section at the 2.15 section is like vintage 1992-1995 NYDM – I love this moment and quite honestly they could have just done the whole song like this and I would have been ok, I love these sections because they are usually included with a super crunchy guitar tone, which calls to mind some Thrash Metal influence.

I have been very happy to see Joe and the band getting bigger shows and headlining some festivals.  I also see since the band has played live to a fair amount of mid-west to West Coast fans that it was inevitable some of those influences are starting to rub off on the band.  So seeing more prevalent influences of bands like Gorgasm, Lividity, Cerebral Incubation in their sound is not surprising.  Extreme Torture is a damn fine release by Immortal Suffering and supported by Paisan, Joe’s killer band!

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