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Torture Chain have had black metal locked down with an ultra raw punkish aesthetic over three demos for the past four years. Limited releases, anonymity (amateur sleuths have uncovered that the man behind them is from Somerville and a has a connection to hardcore punks Mind Eraser), and a name hinting at BDSM. But there was a cheekiness to closing 2010's Across Great Landscapes to a Legacy of Blood (self-released) with a Negative Approach cover. Their latest begins with Ennio Morricone's intro track from The Thing, and few creatures aside from that xenomorph would better fit what follows: tendrils absorbing the pure black metal of Bekhira's 1996 demo, the beast clawing through Bone Awl's black-punk deathmarch, and a dirge of funeral bells. Boils of asymmetrical riffage metastasize through the whole track, tangles of guitar tearing off from the main tumor skittering into the darkness. Over this demo's 20 minutes, Torture Chain don't so much synthesize three waves of black metal as violently infect the genre's cells, replicating and mutating everything you've ever loved in a black-metal record.
