UMUR "Implements Of Excruciation" is the debut full-length studio album by US death metal act Warp Chamber. The album was released through Profound Lore Records in March 2020. It is succeeded by the December 2018 "Abdication Of The Mind" demo and the two tracks from the demo ("Abdication Of The Mind" and "Harvesting the Life Force of a Crumbling Orb") have been re-recorded and included on "Implements Of Excruciation". As "Implements Of Excruciation" only features 4 tracks and a total playing time of 30:06 minutes you don´t get much new material if you already own the demo. "Implements Of Excruciation" was recorded/mixed in early 2018 at Earhammer Studios by Greg Wilkinson, which makes me think that this album was maybe recorded before the "Abdication Of The Mind" demo but released after...

...oh well thoughts and assumptions regarding chronology aside, Warp Chamber play a very similar style of old school death metal on both "Abdication Of The Mind" and "Implements Of Excruciation", which of course to some degree owes to the fact that the two releases share two tracks, but the two remaining tracks on "Implements Of Excruciation" are also in the same early 90s brutal, semi-technical, and gloomy almost abstract death metal style. I hear influences from artists like Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Incantation, and Immolation at various points throughout the album, but Warp Chamber don´t sound exactly like their influences. They for example have the more contemporary habit of placing the unintelligible growling vocals very low in the mix, giving the music a cavornous mystical effect.

"Implements Of Excruciation" features a slightly more professional sounding production job compared to the production values on "Abdication Of The Mind", but they are not far from each other in sound quality, and "Implements Of Excruciation" are as abstract and chaotic sounding as the demo. It´s a sound which suits the complex structures of the band´s songs and their otherworldly gloomy sound. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.