Clayton Dobson- guitar
Ben Hurlow- guitar
Greg Lonesome- vocals
Sean O'Connell- drums
Andy Poluektov- upright bass

The Tortured Souls were a unique project. It was conceived via the Internet, featuring musicians from 3 countries- Canada, Russia and the United States.

Greg had been working on mixing an album for Sean's old band, the Meathookers. Friendships were made and a deal was struck to make some music together.

Ben, Sean and Clayton wrote all the music to the songs and recorded the guitar and drum parts before Andy or Greg had ever heard one note of what they sounded like. They sent the finished recordings off to Greg, where he began mixing and writing lyrics. Greg then sent the files to Andy in Russia to record the bass lines. After the bass was recorded, Greg went into a studio to record the vocals, and then mixed it all down.

The project was written and recorded in the latter half of 2005. Two tracks were released on compilations: a shortened version of "(I Wish I'd Never) Sold My Soul" and a cover of the Frantic Flintstones "What the Hell," which is not included on this EP.

Unfortunately, we could not find anyone to take a chance on releasing an EP for a band that didn't really exist and would never tour. There were a couple different times when it looked like these songs might get released on CD, but they all fell through for one reason or another. So, in 2011 we decided to throw them up on Bandcamp and make them available for the first time.

Fast forward to 2018, DIMM Records decided to produce the first physical release of this material, a full 13 years after it was recorded. In January of 2019, a split CD of the Tortured Souls (plus bonus tracks) and Bombat Belus was released.

Funny how things work.