I was a massive fan of Legacy of Torment's first release, "Inherited Methods of Cruelty". Like, re-visit and re-listen weekly since it came out type fan. So I was fucking PUMPED to see the news about the new full-length AND the extra push that Inherited Suffering Records would give. Well, it has been a week or so since the release of "Ritual Exsanguination". It is everything I hoped for and more. Please go stream it, buy it, buy merch, support these guys. They are putting their all into it!
Enjoy the below interview with Legacy of Torment
CEREBRALREVIEWMENT - Boys, thanks for doing this!!!!
Who is Legacy Of Torment? How did you guys get started? Where are you living? How would you describe your sound?
Benjie: Legacy of Torment is a 3 man slam band brought together by the powers of the internet. Sam originally made a post on the r/brutaldeathmetal subreddit that both Zsombor and I replied to. We made a discord chat so we could start sending ideas and songs back and forth and from there the band was born. I’m from the United States, Sam is from Australia, and Zsombor is from Hungary. When we started the band, we all got into it with the idea of making dumb, fun, caveman slam and I’d say we’ve stayed pretty true to that so far.
Sam: I’m Sam, I play bass in the band and I’m based out of Melbourne,Australia. I met the other guys through a post I put up on r/brutaldeathmetal advertising for an ignorant online slam band. Both Benjie and Zsombor responded, and immediately from the stuff they sent through it was clear they were both insane musicians and a great fit for what I wanted to make which was really exciting. I made the post because unfortunately there was/still is an absence of slam and BDM bands in my local scene so I felt like I didn’t have an outlet for this stuff in person.
Stylistically LoT is definitely your more classic slam band with an emphasis on groove above all else. We also made the conscious effort not to lean into the meme stuff or pick a hyper specific niche early on so that we had a fair amount of room to change things up stylistically and thematically without it being a huge problem. If I had to choose a current band who we sound like I’d probably say someone like Traumatomy or Deprecation.
The beginning of 2024 marked the release of your debut EP, "Inherited Methods of Cruelty". Over a year later, do you guys feel like that EP was well-received?
Benjie: I feel like most of the comments I saw online were fairly positive. I don’t know if I saw any reviews, but in general most of the commentary I saw was really encouraging.
Sam: Releasing anything independently always comes with reach issues but looking back I was definitely surprised by how many people liked it. I think I just assumed a handful of sweaty sickos would find it, jam it for a week and that would be it. However yeah from the comments I saw and conversations I had with people I was blown away by the love that EP got honestly especially over on YouTube. I think more than anything that EP was a test to see if this online dynamic worked for us. We all had fun making it and we all really liked the tracks so once those two boxes were ticked we didn’t really care what happened post release and I think that sentiment has stayed true for the full length as well.
Now we have the debut full-length, "Ritual Exsanguination". I've listened to it twice, and it has completely drained my blood already! (First time I've actually looked up the word!) Can you talk about your writing process and what has changed, if anything, between the EP and the full-length?
Sam: Funnily enough my day job entails working with blood so I’m trying to make a conscious effort to suggest LESS blood related names cause the guys are definitely getting sick of them. I think the writing process is more or less the same as it was for the first release but just much more focused and refined. The basic rundown is we write and send each other tabs, whether that’s just a couple of riffs or a whole song idea, and then from there we suggest changes or revisions depending on what the track needs. For this release that whole process was just way smoother. We all have a better understanding of how we each write, everyone is really chill when it comes to making changes, and three members is just the perfect number for quickly voting on shit!
One big difference was that we were given the amazing opportunity to release the album through Inherited Suffering Records this time around, which was a really big deal for us. Originally we planned on a shorter release but when Alex reached out and said he’d be interested in having us on for a full length we jumped at the opportunity. Personally I felt like writing for a label definitely came with a new kind of mental pressure but I don’t think it affected the process too much.
The new album also has 3 AMAZING vocal features, Azerate Nakamura, Angel Ochoa, and Polwach Beokhaimook. How did you decide to reach out to them, how was working with them?
Benjie: Sam did most of the work talking with the guests and coordinating it all, but I do just want to pop in and say that Angel has been one of my favorite death metal vocalists for years and also one of my biggest vocal influences. Getting to share a track with him was kind of a dream come true. Azerate and Polwach were both awesome as well. I remember when we got their tracks in and they both blew us away. They both brought some real heat (with some super sick predator style vocals) and it’s a real honor to share a track with them.
Sam: Yes!! All those dudes absolutely crushed it too, still blown away by how sick those parts turned out. During production we basically put together a short list of who our dream vocalists were that we’d want on the album then just shot out some messages and hoped for the best! Once again I feel like expectations were low, especially since most of these dudes were coming off the back of major AOTY releases so we thought “yeah right, as if they’d have time to jump on our stuff”.
But in the end we got some great responses and everyone was so incredibly easy to work with. Even just from chatting with Angel, Azeraté and Polwach during tracking it’s so obvious how much passion these guys have for the genre and it was such an honour to get them on. It’s honestly still so surreal because we’re such huge fans of their music. Of course there were also a few names on the list that for scheduling/ personal reasons couldn’t get involved this time around but we’ll make sure to get them on the next one.
Can you talk about the art and imagery behind the band? Who did the EP art and the full-length art? How are the lyrics written? Is there a theme you try and stick to?
Regarding the lyrics, for the most part, they’re almost all written off the cuff. My process basically boils down to just listening to the same section of a song over and over until I come up with something that sounds good and then moving onto the next section. All of my lyrics are tied thematically to the title of the song and, usually, the title comes first based purely on the vibes we get from it. Every now and then we’ll come up with a cool theme for a song related to some piece of pop culture we enjoy or we’ll get a silly idea for a song that I then go crazy with. Cranial Collapse in particular is another one I had a ton of fun writing. It’s goofy and takes the typical subject matter of death metal and flips it on its head. So far I’ve written 1 song about Hellraiser and 2 about some real deep cuts from Star Wars and I can’t wait to see what else I can work in.
Sam: When it comes to lyrics Zsombor and I will chip in some ideas but Benjie’s the one with the magic touch for that stuff so he writes it all. Like I said we don’t really have a hyper specific niche so lyrics and concepts are always super organic and mostly just whatever strikes us as being brutal at the time.
This time around the Album had a pretty good range of stories from human atrocities, eldritch horror, medical nightmares, going back to the medieval ages all the way to sci-fi with some wild Star Wars deep cuts.
We still hone in heavily on a lot of gore and horror stuff but there has to be some kind of twist, peculiarity, format change or irony that makes it interesting and engaging rather than just the usual “Victim killed with a knife” route. It is funny to me that we do put so much effort into the lyrics and story only to immediately track them with the most brutal incomprehensible gurgles and crickets Benjie can muster but honestly I wouldn’t change a thing.
Both the album art and the EP art were done by Daemorph and we’ve been thrilled with both. I remember for the first release we barely gave him any direction, we just said “…you know cartel beheading vids? that but medieval.” And he absolutely nailed it.
The album cover this time was definitely more thought out and we felt what he delivered was amazing. The art is so fun, brutal, and in-depth but also clearly tells the story we were trying to tell! The man is insanely talented.
Thanks again guys! Loving the new album! Any last words to wrap up?
Benjie: I just want to thank everyone who checks out the album in some form or fashion! It means a lot to me that people would take time out of their days to check out our music. Cheers!
Sam: A huge thanks to everyone who has checked out the album, we really appreciate you guys! Of course a big thanks to Cerebral Reviewment for hitting us up and letting us talk some mad shit. We’ve already started to move on new material and ideas so hopefully you hear from us really soon!
LINKS
‘Embodied in Elms of Eternal Misery’ has an awesome dissonant strummed chord that keeps returning and the drums are just off the wall creative. The guitars start a descending melodic riff that leads to my favorite outro thus far. 
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