The Horde of Torment "Product of a Sick Mind": Bleeding Priest's Bay Area Metal Spotlight 18

What’s up everybody, and welcome to another edition of Bleeding Priest’s Bay Area Metal Spotlight.

Today, I’m going to be talking about a band that was quite popular in the Bay Area thrash scene from around 1990 to 1992 — right up until they broke up. They were playing all the big shows, often sharing the stage with local bands like Epidemic and Wrecking Machine, and getting plenty of gigs with Epidemic in particular.

But they also opened for heavyweights like Vio-Lence and Forbidden, and even landed national touring packages when they came through the Bay at venues like The Stone or The Omni. More often than not, Horde of Torment were the opening band.

The band originally moved here from Las Vegas in ’89 — transplants bringing serious heat. At that time, they were still called Pestilence. I’m not sure if they changed their name because of the Dutch death metal band Pestilence, who had already toured the world and released albums by then, but it’s likely. 

Either way, after relocating to the Bay, they switched their name to Horde of Torment. They even played a few local shows under the original Pestilence name before making the change.

This record is actually a compilation. It includes the Product of a Sick Mind demo — a demo I absolutely love. That’s the one that first turned me on to the band. I heard the tape before I saw them live and thought, “Holy shit, this is what a demo tape can sound like.” It was probably the first truly professional-sounding demo I ever heard.

Horde of Torment

The recording quality was great — the tones, the playing, everything was there. It still had that gritty demo feel, not over-polished, but clear and powerful. For a demo tape, it was damn impressive.

Side A is Product of a Sick Mind. Side B features the Infected demo from their Pestilence days, recorded in Vegas. That’s the material they were promoting when they first came to the Bay Area, still performing songs from that era.

Infected is a killer demo — rougher sounding, definitely influenced by Slayer’s Hell Awaits era (my favorite period of Slayer). But their songwriting really improved by Product of a Sick Mind. That later demo leans more toward Vio-Lence, Slayer, and early Kreator — just fast, vicious thrash metal. Killer stuff all around.

They later put out another demo called Inherit the Sin, recorded at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco. That came out around 1990 or ’91 and was also super pro. It sounded fantastic, but stylistically it leaned more mid-tempo, in the vein of later Testament — Practice What You Preach or Souls of Black era. Still great, but I’ve always preferred their earlier, faster material — it’s just more visceral.

It’s shocking they never got signed. Between Product of a Sick Mind and Inherit the Sin, they had two top-tier demos. In fact, Inherit the Sin sounds better than some full-length thrash albums from that era. They even recorded a later two-song demo with producer Michael Rosen, who was a major name in the Bay Area scene — working with Vicious Rumors, Defiance, and many others.

When Horde of Torment recorded with Rosen, everyone assumed a record deal was right around the corner. But it never happened.

Timing might’ve been the issue — thrash was fading, and grunge was taking over by the early ’90s. Had those demos dropped a few years earlier, they’d probably have been signed alongside Epidemic, who landed on Metal Blade Records.

After the band split, the members mostly faded from the scene. Vocalist Kevin went on to front a Nirvana tribute band, even handling the left-handed bass parts like Kurt himself. 

Guitarist Arhue Luster went much further — he joined Machine Head and played on The Burning Red and Supercharger. I actually remember Old Grandad supporting Arhue's first show with Machine Head which was at the Cocodrie in San Francisco — that was a wild scene, seeing Kerry King crammed onto that tiny stage.

After Machine Head, Arhue joined Ill Niño, one of the big nu-metal acts of the 2000s, and he’s still active today in Lions at the Gate, who are opening for Death Angel’s upcoming U.S. Act III 35th Anniversary Tour this November and December. Cool to see he’s still out there.

Horde of Torment

Horde of Torment never quite got their moment in the sun. They were big fish in the Bay Area thrash pond but never broke out nationally. Still, their demos are absolute killers.

The record itself is tough to find — it was released on Bucher Records out of France, a label I’d never heard of. I found my copy at a European festival record tent and couldn’t believe my luck. Snatched it up instantly, and I’m glad I did. I love this album — or rather, this collection of demos — and you should check it out too. Horde of Torment deserves that recognition.

–Bleeding Priest