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THRONEUM
The Tight Deathrope Act Over Rubicon

Hells Headbangers (2018)
Rating: 9/10

Having formed in the 90s – originally as Throne – it’s no surprise that Polish force Throneum is now on its ninth full-length release. Arguably one of the most prolific bands within the extreme metal genre, this trio has again crafted a record that literally scalps.

I admit to approaching this release with trepidation due to the sadistic nature of the band’s sound; the abrasive guitar tone cavorting feverishly with the spiteful drums and equally dirty bass tones. All it needs is a hoarse vocal rasp of hate and you’re on to a winner, and of course Throneum continually provide such wicked pleasures.

The dehydrated coughs of guitarist The Great Executor are such a focal point of this scornful opus that clambers through grim passageways with an almost doomy design, although rarely does the group resort to gloomy trudges. But such is the foul, cavernous air that one wouldn’t be surprised if Throneum has conjured up this latest offering by way of sorcery and midnight tomfoolery.

Just check out the speeding might of opener ‘Crossing The Dead River’ with its pungent slower passages of morbidity; damn these guys make Aura Noir seem tame as they produce chilly rattles of despair which reek of utmost arrogance. The epic title track begins like some hissing entity cowering over its holy victims as the drum pricks of Diabolizer suggest troubling times to come. As the guitars sizzle and spike their way in torment through the haze we’re filled with utter dread; the tumult unravelling like some wicked spectre before the bouts of hellish speed come clattering in.

Not many bands get more blasphemous than Throneum. Everything about the album literally mocks the listener as if we’re not worthy of being in the presence of such a hideous power, and that eight-minute title track just renders me speechless with its agonising whines, it’s ominous trickles and then those dry coatings of seething anguish.

Throneum is a band who just know how to jam lengthy time durations with as much evil speed and despondent lower tempos as possible. Whether it’s the torturous black / death speed metal hell drive of ‘Enochian Lexicon I’ or the pacing malice of ‘The Biblical Serpent – The Master Of Misfortune’, this is horrible stuff exuding confidence and unparalleled despair.

In a sense it’s a band taking Hellhammer and Celtic Frost’s wizardry to greater pantheons of pain and suffering as frightful riff after frightful riff comes churning, only to be violated by a ramshackle blast of speed. Just brace yourself for the hideous rage of ‘Enochian Lexicon II’; can a vocalist sound so tormented? And you’ll be pleased to know that ‘Enchonian’ comes in four dismal parts, the third instalment supplying some genuine creepiness in its jarring guitar sound, while the fourth episode lumbers in with such stuffiness and sickness that I’m sure I just heard my front door open of its own accord.

Damn, this is some seriously dark and satanic stuff; the clambering horrors of ‘To-Mega-Therion’ showcasing the technical ability of the band as they drag us through a veritable horror show of jarring chords, stabbing percussion and Armagog’s septic bass twangs.

This is very much raw metal but so unearthly is its gaze and guise. Suggestions of avant-garde marrying seem on the agenda as the trio creates another suspenseful framework of discordant blazes within which loiter gripping flecks of genuine oddness and perversion, and by the time closer ‘Primal Worlds. Orphic’ comes trudging through the muddy waters of another clammy passage I’m left breathless and bewildered by this tour of archaic, anarchic and very much anomalous extreme metal.

Neil Arnold

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