The sabbathian rain sample that opens "Aeonscurge" paves the way to uncompromising, old school ripping black metal in the vein of the Scandinavian pioneers of the genre.
Ugly screaming vocals, classic riffing and a quite dirty production contribute to create a solid and "catchy" track. I appreciated the nasty rotten and distorted sound of the bass, something that is not so common anymore.

All the album follows pretty much the same worn path, and Tortorum succeed in delivering solid classic black metal songs. Nothing new under the funeral moon of course, but "Extincitionist" works really well for what it is. The band's sound is strong and dirty enough,  the titles and thematics are spot-on on the border with cheesiness ("Fucking Wortless", "For The Ruin Of All", "Gloria In Extinction" - you get it), and some of the riff/vocals combinations are quite impressive. There's enough variation and composition in all the songs, so the album managed to hold my attention quite easily.  The vocals are unusually intelligible, and not really "demonic" since their pitch is kept quite low, and the drums are fast and loud just as they should.

The guys behind Tortorum are not exactly newcomers (guitarist comes from Polish band Thunderbolt for example) so the good value of this product comes as no surprise. But maybe the problem is indeed that I perceive this album as little more than a product: I can't deny that it's good and it's a pleasurable listen for all palates longing for traditional black metal, but I feel it lacks a bit of personality.  Everything sounds perfect, but in the end after the CD stopped spinning nothing particularly stuck to my mind.

This black metal expats duo definitely has lots of talent so I hope that their next album will be more personal and memorable. Anyway, I recommend "Extinctionist" to all lovers of Norwegian black metal from the nineties.