Death-turned-black metal band Thornesbreed has returned from an extended hiatus with a following wind. Well, perhaps more of a hurricane, by the sound of a couple of these tracks, but with such deft control over those whistling winds that at times it threatens to sandblast the skin from every inch of your body and then wrap you up again in something altogether more ugly.
On the one hand, GTRD – and I still haven’t quite worked out what that stands for – could be dismissed as a pretty straightforward black metal album. It reminds me of a bunch of highly competent and icily cold German bands I could rattle off with glass-sharp riffs and flamethrower vocals. A cursory listen may well find this as impenetrable as the title. But, press onwards into the thick, black fog and it may just consume your senses with its bleak and malevolent vision
What the hell am I talking about, you say? Well, I always think that the word ‘uncompromising’ is much overused. A by-word for turning up the throttle and the volume. But, when it does apply, is when a band sets about carving its own particular conception and does not invite you in with snappy titles or covers with cartoon Lucifers on the front. But rather leaves the door open and the rest, all the hard work, up to you.
And at times GTRD is just that. Third track Abendwerk is a great example of what I’m talking about. Seven-and-a-half minutes of morbidly intense black metal with its stop-start approach down meandering side passages and through overgrown bramble-strewn back streets. But the skill within the first half of the album is undeniably apparent. Like some parasitic demon wrapping itself up in a cocoon ready to unleash itself.
It does indeed unleash itself. Perpetual Stigmata is a classic piece of swirling black metal. But it’s on Horns of Gaia, a more controlled grand epic of a track, that GTRD finally begins to reveal the band’s dimensions to their fullest. If there’s anything that can be described as a hook anywhere in this album, then that is it. The final track brings all of Thornesbreed’s seething diversity together in one track and makes you wonder a little why you had to work so hard for your bone in other parts of the release. If bleak, nightmarish, powerful but slightly impenetrable black metal is your thing then GRTD is it.
Thornesbreed is not re-writing the rule book by any means – there are some familiar aspects to this. But Its commitment to such a lifeless and negative sound is both effective and commendable. I’ve spent the last few days switching from feeling like this is still a work in progress (I’d edit the heavy breathing, myself) to getting dangerously close to blowing my socks off. Maybe Thornesbreed do not like to give up their treasures easily. This is classic black metal but perhaps not for the faint of heart.
(7.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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