by John SerbaFirst things first, Yersinia Pestis is the Latin name for The Plague bacteria, which is transferred to people via fleas carried by rats -- hence, Torchbearer's torch-carrying and evocative tune"Dead Children, Black Rats." With that bleak factoid as its foundation, Torchbearer rips and tears through ten tracks of thrashing, deathly death-thrash that's enjoyable, if a bit redundant in its, um, deathly thrashing. The group plays fast and loose with cliches -- growled vocals, blastbeats, non-stop riff-o-rama, lyrics bordering on self-parody -- and creates a relatively enjoyable, well-executed and crisply produced record in Yersinia Pestis, which boasts a few anthemic arrangements ("Faith Bled Dry,""Assail the Creation") amongst a clinical display of speed and death/black metal aggression. The bottom line here, however, finds Torchbearer(which includes members of Setherial, Incapacity, Satarial and Unmoored, if anyone cares) playing nice within designated boundaries, and Yersinia Pestis has a hard time sticking out from the middle of the pack.