Album Review - Citadel Of Torment (Scolopendra)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back metalheads to The Great Metal Debate podcast. It's Xander back with another album review. Today we will be looking at the latest release from the French death metal band Scolopendra with their third album Citadel of Torment. This is the French death metal band and is not to be confused with the Italian death metal band of the same name. Some of you might go to Metal-Archives and point out that Citadel of Torment is actually an EP rather than a full-length album. Here is a quote from the Bandcamp page: "Citadel of Torment is about psychic suffering and a futuristic dystopian universe in which there is no hope. The frontman Thomas made this entire album after the band split in early 2023. The band starts with a new lineup in 2024." Citadel of Torment opens with the song "Panic Epidemic" which is a solid death metal song but has a little something extra that initially caught my attention. The use of sound effects. Within the first 30 seconds we hear industrial-like noises that sound like a rapid clicking as if someone is turning cogs in a machine. There's also the dissonant sound of a hammer hitting an anvil as if we are in some sort of steel fabricating foundry. These sounds continue throughout the remainder of this guitar chug fest and the next song "Neuro Dissection". "Neuro Dissection" has an almost djent style rhythm to both the guitars and drums while the bass and vocals work nicely to fit right into the groovy beat. A lot of bands have had songs in the past titled "Event Horizon" which is named after the 1997 science fiction horror flick. Scolopendra have taken their musical prowess to new heights by sticking to the simplistic head bobbing riffs provided by Maxime and Yves Pens. A skilled drummer like Leo Godart has impressed me with using every drum on his kit instead of being another one trick pony like most other death metal drummers who only do blast beats. Leo knows how to be both fast but precise with his patterns. An ominous choir-like backtrack haunts the intro for the following track "Foreign Soul". It definitely gives off those eerie vibes before going into electronic infused winding guitar sounds. Leo of course pounding away at the drums and abusing the multitude of cymbals with short machine gun-esq bursts of occasional gravy blasts. The cymbals are of course the perfect way to ease into "Mental Torture pt. 2" which is a sequel song to "Mental Torture" from the 2016 debut Cycles. I love the way this song concludes during its last minute with those whaaa sounds. I don't know what word to use to describe it so I'm sorry you had to hear me make irritating mouth noises. Finally we come to the album closer "Black Fortress" which almost kinda has a death-n-roll sound to the main riff. It'll make the listeners go into a slow nodding before the instruments collectively pick up speed for that thrash metal type of fast guitar chugging. This 7 minute long song fluctuates its pace from slow to fast so it'll keep you on your toes and it's like the band saved the best for last because this is one of my favorite songs of 2024 so far. It's a bone crushing tank of a death metal track. Over the past 2 weeks that I have been cranking this album up in my car, I have come to thoroughly enjoy this short album front to back. It's highly enjoyable, although I will say that the riffs are simple. It's not what I would consider a masterpiece but it's still great nonetheless. I'm going to give it a 7.5/10 rating. You can support these guys by purchasing their music and merch through their Bandcamp page and you can stream their music on all music streaming platforms.