Torture Killer

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Torture Killer

Country	Finland, Europe
Years active	2002 – Present
Genres	Death metal
Labels	Metal Blade Records
Members	Chris Barnes, Tuomas Karppinen, Jari Laine, Kim Torniainen, Tuomo Latvala

Torture Killer is a death metal band from Finland which started out in 2002 as a Six Feet Under cover band, but soon began composing and performing original material in the same vein. Chris Barnes, the original vocalist for Cannibal Corpse and current vocalist for Six Feet Under, officially joined Torture Killer as lead vocalist in November 2005. The other members of the band are Tuomas Karppinen (guitar), Jari Laine (guitar), Kim Torniainen (bass), and Tuomo Latvala (drums).

The band first started out as a fun project during the spring of 2002, when the guys hung out at their rehearsal rooms drinking beer and playing their favourite Six Feet Under and Obituary songs. After a couple of months a sudden possibility to play live at a local metalshow rose out of nowhere and after a small discussion they agreed to perform a set of SFU cover songs. The band name was chosen after a track they were to play that night: Torture Killer. After that weekend they decided to try writing similar material of their own.

6 months later, Torture Killer were in the studio recording 9 tracks to be released on Severe Music, the label of one of the Torture Killer members. The final result for this low budget recording (recorded, mixed and mastered in 30 hours) was their debut album. They decided to try their luck and sent promo-copies to a small amount of respectable metal labels. Hammerheart and Torture Killer signed a deal in spring 2003.

The Debut album "For Maggots To Devour" was released through Karmageddon Media in october 2003. After the release the band did a tour in Finland supporting Vader and shortly after that embarked on their first small european tour with Cropment and Poppy Seed Grinder. The line-up changed just a few days before the european trip and Sallinen (Funeral Feast) stepped in to save the day and the band continued to use his help after the tour with random live dates. In September 2005 Torture Killer shares a release with a fellow finnish death metal murdermachine Sotajumala, the split ep carries out two new T-K tracks with Sallinen on vocals and is released as 7"-vinyl and as a CD single.

While Torture Killer was on the "blast your violence" european tour, the band was approached by former Cannibal Corpse frontman, Chris Barnes, who now leads another death metal band Six Feet Under.

The name Torture Killer caught Barnes's attention and he was intrigued enough to check them out - finding them in a difficult situation with the line-up. During the year 2005 a lot of preparations were made and on November, 2005, it was official: Chris joined Torture Killer and Torture Killer was signed to Metal Blade records. The second album "Swarm!" was recorded earlier on that year with Barnes writing more than half of the songs on the album.