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THRONEHAMMER
Incantation Rites

Supreme Chaos (2021)
Rating: 9/10

Combining sludge, stoner, doom and whatever else you want to call it, the epic chimes of Thronehammer’s latest slab comes at you like a slow-motion mallet onto the cranium. Incantation Rites is a soundtrack to superheroes getting their arses kicked by villains in gory battles that no child should see.

Now, I’m not into “sludge” or “stoner” but I do like doom metal, especially of the more traditional variety and this UK / German act brings it in spades… and those spades are clogged down heavily with dirt.

I also tend to lose my patience with overlong doomy escapades and landscapes, which pretty much means that anything over seven or so minutes can certainly test me. However, I’m familiar with Thronehammer and their slow-motion dental treatment, and believe me this new monolith is to die for, more so because it has that ability to mix the styles I mentioned without boring the listener into a quagmire coma of weed-drenched solitude.

The band are becoming masters of creating great walls of hammering doom, and however thick your walls are the cracks are soon to appear as the title track bleeds from the soil and worms its way against the structure, heaving hard, pushing with immense force like a sweeping tsunami.

‘Incantation Rites’ is 14-minutes of spine-cracking, nerve-jangling monolithic doom that lumbers on the black rolling waves of drummer Markus “Kid Dynamite” Ströhlein’s colossal thuds. But it’s the pure anthemic, commanding vocal booms of Kat Shevil Gillham that propel this gargantuan beast to greater heights; she soars higher than mist-caressed mountains and bellows deeper than any of the crypts of Hell. Behind her, the dual guitar sound of Stuart “Bootsy” West and Tim Hammersmith is akin to an army of foul orcs, armed to the teeth, warts n’ all, grinding in the same fashion.

The title track of Thronehammer’s second opus is an absorbing stomp of Gothic creaking that never alters its pace and remains a consistent pushing force – a syrupy tidal wave of rainy brilliance.

‘Thy Blood’ crashes with the same horrifying intensity, as if Slayer’s ‘South Of Heaven’ has suddenly been given the doom treatment. Here, cymbals hiss with menace, guitar groans like a heaving prehistoric beast and Uwe Void’s bass shudders into earthquake proportions before the combo joins as one, marching stone-faced into oblivion.

Sultry slower segments enter the fray, but it’s mere respite fragmentation before the yawning abyss of ‘Eternal Thralldom’ comes lurching, oozing and spilling its vast congealed arse out of the pit. This is no energy draining spectre of an album but a trudging epic masterpiece that continues its route, providing persistence and consistency as I envisage a great horde of beings traipsing through the wastes and shadowed by enormous ancient structures caressed by wisps of kingdom smoke and fog.

‘A Fading King’ opens like an aching portcullis, where great chains of rust are pulled to reveal a teeming sea of figures as Kat growls like some overseeing entity, monitoring its barriers of bass, drums and churning guitars which cross and mash to create a bombastic, grandiose barrier of seething woe.

‘Beneath Black Cloud Masses’ should have been the album title, a rather apt gaseous moniker to conjure up images of steeped, melodic sweeps and gloriously Gothic strands of heavyweight webbing. Chords cloy and clamber round the face as I am projected images of bloodied warriors caked in crimson, sapped by battle yet heaving themselves to that morose tide of toiling guitars as Uwe Void fingers his bass strings once more to create a vibration of doom that resonates across the leaden sky.

Thronehammer goes from epic to epic, from strength to strength. ‘Devouring Kingdoms’ is a sluggish mass that bludgeons with a clubbing drum motion, while closer ‘Of Mountaintops And Glacial Tombs’ provides 15-minutes of solemn glory, only this time the riffs feel more sprightly, energised and fiery, even when Kat’s croons remain steadfast. The monstrosity of ‘Of Mountaintops And Glacial Tombs’ builds to a point where all rivers will burst their banks and crashing waterfalls destroy their own inclines.

Vast, sweeping, tidal, emotive, and quaking are just a few superlatives that spring to mind in describing a band that has progressed way beyond the tremors of their 2019 debut outing Usurper Of The Oaken Throne, and as I kneel before another trudging riff I can only drown in the great currents created by this band of beasts.

Where the band go from here I cannot imagine, but for now I must return to its depths and be at one with the overwhelming waves of instrumentation and Kat’s imposing heights. Thronehammer’s new opus is an unassailable behemoth.

Neil Arnold

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