Torture Wheel - Crushed Under... Terrorizer Magazine (review by Jim Martin)

Torture Wheel
'Crushed Under'
Firedoom

Summoning up bleak, alien vistas that stretch unto infinity in a manner not entirely unlike the closing scenes of the Lucio Fulci chiller 'The Beyond', the one-man project that is Torture Wheel has created something unique and unnerving with this four-tune, 45 minute-long 'EP'. Whilst the slow, ominous atmosphere that forms the majority of 'Crushed Under' resembles the barren landscapes that various funeral doom denizens have made their own, there's a more colorful, keyboard-heavy and expansive aura to these long drawn-out exorcisms that's all this outfits own, lending a more psychedelic aspect far removed from the monochrome despair of the UDOMs and Thergothons of this world. Despite a slight 'bedroom' vibe that's entirely at odds with the alien cartography the music maps out (those pesky drum machines again) Torture Wheel have succeeded in conjuring up a fascinatingly otherworldly aura, cinematic in its vastness and sinister in its demeanour. As befits any band who take Esoteric's Snails-pace dementia into realms still more bizarre, this is not for the faint-hearted.

(8) Jim Martin