Old Death's Lair

Throneum are a Blackened Death Metal band officially, although I’d say there’s at least as much Thrash in there as anything else. I always remembered the band as reminding me of Nunslaughter, but couldn’t form anything more precise in the few moments before I pushed play. While similarities are no doubt present, the overall package has a completely different feel than Nunslaughter, and so a more direct comparison wouldn’t be fair.

The whole album has a very odd but effective sound. Everything sounds fairly flat, which would normally be a problem, and does cause you to strain to make out some parts, but it all works quite well. The drums are bathed in reverb, which makes for a deliciously eerie sound and the distorted bass is perfectly audible throughout. The entire thing has the feel of being in a massive, underground Mausoleum, or Old Death’s Lair, if you will.

The guitars generally play very thrashy riffs in a completely merciless style, and with a generous amount of leads mixed in. One of the biggest flaws of the album is the comparatively low volume of the solos, as what can be heard of them in Rites of the Forefathers is nothing short of excellent. The bass often follows the guitars, but there’re quite a few instances where it leads the groove on its own, such as in the middle section of Domination to Fall. The drumming occupies a very large portion of the sonic space, and is very well done. It sounds stunningly sloppy due to the echoing nature of each hit, but this merely reinforces the atmosphere.

The drumming is quite varied, and several of the patterns are quite ingenious, such as the devious rolls at the end of Rites of Forefather’s and the seminal, haunting bass and drum intro to Reign of War. At the same time they do blast too much at parts, and a few riffs seem like they could’ve been more effective with a different kind of drumming. Still, this is probably only felt compared to the masterful subtlety displayed at other times.

The vocals generally sound like they came from the punkier side of thrash, and are bathed in reverb as they sit behind the riffs. The singer occasionally lets out a chilling wail, all of which are absolutely priceless in their effectiveness. A third, rarely used, more death metal style is sometimes present as well. It has some of the same amateur sounding charms as a band like Von’s growls can, although they’re undoubtedly the least effective of the three styles.

Lyrics aren’t provided. The few bits that can be made out, the process being difficult as a result of the low volume of the lyrics rather than their nature, seem fairly standard. Immolation’s Fear, for instance, deals with witches being burned alive. The track titles are generally rather well done and fit in with the mood, although Future is Like a Funeral is painfully awkward without a ‘the’ or ‘a’ before it, and a few, such as Black Thrash Till Death don’t really seem to fit with the rest.

The music is very interesting due to being a seamless mix of thrash riffing and black metal atmosphere. Some of the leads sound absolutely furious, such as on Torture’s Mask. These are often complimented by truly eerie and almost mournful passages, such as the following track, Creeping and Trustful. Several of the most effective passages are transitions between riffs, such as the echoing drum rolls and screaming exhibited towards the end of Ancient Mother Whore, or the crushing break in Black Thrash Till Death. There are a few more traditional black metal parts, such as in Future is Like a Funeral, although these oddly enough sound like the most upbeat parts on the album.

Everything isn’t perfect. On the track Serpentine Transformations, for instance, there are a few structural/transition problems. Everything drops out save the guitars which are building toward what sounds like a fabulously heavy riff. But when everything comes back in, it’s not to play the aforementioned, hinted riff, but rather for the backing instruments to merely groove along while the guitars solo. This solves the earlier problem that tracks like Rite of the Forefather’s had, with a partially buried solo, but while the section was good it defied your expectations, and not in a positive, ‘I didn’t see that coming, but it fits even better than what I thought was coming!’ way. Still, the solo is quite good and the following thrashy riff is suitably excellent to make up for it, so while the album isn’t perfect, it’s damn close…

…well, almost. The final two tracks are far shorter than the others, and I suppose I should be thankful for their length, if nothing else. Doomsday is a minute and a half drum solo. The enchanting reverb’s been left out, which I suppose was necessary to avoid it turning into a mess of indecipherable mud, bangs and clangs, but knowledge of its necessity doesn’t help the fact that it’s weaker for it. Yes, the drummer’s damn coordinated and skilled, but he’s already demonstrated that through the music. We didn’t need a minute and a half over clean soloing to show us, thank you very much.

The following outro also sucks. It consists of a minute or so of random effects which sound silly, followed by a laughable final exclamation from the vocalist. The whole thing bears similarities to the intro in that they’re both utterly pointless, but at least the intro sort of fit. After the drum solo this just feels misplaced and useless. Still, the two tracks together – three, if you count the intro - are about the length of any one of the other ten perfectly good songs on the album, so it’s not a particularly big deal.

Throneum are a surprisingly captivating band. The music is intensely atmospheric, as well as being perfectly suited for head banging. The whole thing is an almost airtight package, with the few slip ups being comparatively minor to the excellence displayed throughout the rest of the music. This is highly recommended, and forms an interesting take on blackened thrash, as well as being good music to walk through catacombs while listening to.