"Sludge Metal" is something that is relatively new to me. THE THRONE are from Szczecin, Poland and have finally released their first full-length album. It is proving relatively hard to find information about them, even their Facebook page has minimal information! So I am coming into this with completely clear views and no previous conceptions of them.

The first track of the album "Five Years" has no vocals and serves purely as an opening track which runs rather smoothly into the second track "Monument" . Now, I'm finding it really hard to pinpoint their sound. The guitars have an almost Metalcore sound to them. At around the two minute mark, the vocals sound very Metalcore also, you can hear poor Michal straining to keep up the scream and you just want to give him a pat on the back and tell him to calm down. This song as a whole is very confusing, there are so many mood and tempo shifts that it can be hard to keep up.

The third song on the album happens to be the title track and is one of the most infuriating on the album. Now I'm a bit of a perfectionist and the riff at around one and a half minutes is so frantic and all over the place that it's absolutely infuriating, they try the whole technical aspect and, in my opinion, fail miserably. Apart from that, the rest of the track is listenable. Like a strange mixture between Doom and Hardcore.

I don't dislike this album by any means, but I do believe it could have been better. They seem to not know what they're doing and what they're aiming for. It was simplistic and didn't really push the borders or think outside the box. While it is pleasing to the ear, they have that "pub band" feel and sound about them, which is fine, everyone has to start somewhere. I just can't help but think that only 70% was put into this album; where the other 30% went I don't know but it definitely wasn't in this album.