THRONEUM seems like a band I should have heard of before, I like old school Death Metal, and I like Doom Metal and Atmospheric Metal a lot. They seem like a very interesting mix of old school Death and Atmospheric Black Metal. It even has extended song forms and quite a few progressive metal tendencies. Not to mention it has only longer songs and interludes. I should love all of this! And yet, something is holding me back.

I would say I can't put my finger on what it's bothering me, but I can, the vocals are just not my thing. I'm not even sure what the vocalist is going for quite frankly, it sounds like the worst of the low quality Black Metal albums I find in the dregs of the internet. Those albums that were clearly recorded on a toy microphone, placed in a trash can. I want to get my criticism of the vocals out of the way upfront because they are by far the worst aspect of the album and when I am able to look past them, there's a beautiful and stark barren soundscape full of despair and hatred, which is exactly what I want to hear.

"Alpha:soulside-space-stream" kicks things off as a 15 minute long Death Metal epic. Right away the riffing is filthy and grim, then the vocals come in and just make it very difficult to even listen to this part of the song. The riffs and guitar layers are beautiful, but then you have this lunatic shouting over everything. I mean it sounds like his throat was mangled and torn, and now this is the only sound he can make. I guess the more I listen to this it seems like that kind of maddened yelling is exactly what the vocalist wanted. The vocals here could almost be the shouts of the insane in Arkham, it's certainly an unnerving sound. I prefer to think they purposefully wanted the vocals to sound that way because otherwise they really do sound like the cries of a dying animal.

Now with such long songs there are instrumental passages and those honestly are my favorite parts of the songs. The whole last 5 minutes of "Alpha: Soulside" dips into a Psychedelic Doom sort of thing for the outro. It's actually really great, it feels haunted and tense in all the right ways. This is where some of the band's Progressive tendencies show up and they do a good job slowing things down while keeping the listener interested and when they finally break the tension with two minutes to go and the guitars just bombard you with furious shredding and polyphony galore. It makes for quite the memorable ending.

I want to talk about the instrumental interludes a bit because I really like them. "Alpha" and "Beta on Tetragramaton" together make for a pleasant duo with surreal electronic sounds and some honest to gods piano. I'm a piano player so I always look out for keyboard useage and while it's rather minimal on this album they use it to great effect. Epsilon creates wonderful tension with timpani, strings and a clarinet I believe, it sounds very ancient and tribal. There's not a whole lot else to say about them, but for the band's sake, I very much enjoyed the instrumentation and atmosphere of the interludes.

"Delta" and "Zeta" get us back to crushing riffs, blast beats and of course those mad vocals. The shrieks of the Damned or the cries of the insane, however you want to perceive them. "Delta" actually features some female vocals which makes for a nice change and aids the transition into the development section. This section is haunting and unnerving. It's the kind of thing you would expect to hear in an actual horror movie (not the jumpscare kind). It creates the sort of tension you get in a game like Bloodborne, where everything is... off, twisted and corrupted and it might look like a familiar landscape, but it's certainly no longer friendly. This kind of verbose description is the best way to explain this album, the band clearly set out to make an album to shock the senses and perhaps even give their listeners a sense of anxiety or panic and they do a very good job at it. "Zeta" is pretty cool, not because of the Death Metal, but the softer instrumental sections are cool. They layer the crap out of the guitar and the bass actually gets some attention! Actually this is the first time I've been able to really hear the bass on the album and this bass player has some solid chops. The song fades out with more of the layered acoustic sound from the development section.

I will admit, the longer songs can get somewhat repetitive, but that's kind of what happens when you're not trying to create hooks as much as the atmosphere. This isn't the most memorable album, but there are definitely moments that stand out. Normally I'm a fan of the more aggressive sections, but when these guys dip into Psychedelia and Doom, those are the more memorable parts. I think "Zeta" was the most enjoyable song for me, and it's largely because that song really embraced the doomier aspect of their sound.

I recently reviewed an atmospheric black metal album and my biggest complaint was, I ended up enjoying the non-metal sections more than the metal. Kind of the same thing here, though this album has a little more variety of sound. I started off this album not really enjoying the sound, and being especially turned off by the vocals, but by the time I finished spending time with it and writing my review, I realized there's a lot more depth to this album than I initially perceived and I did end up enjoying myself a fair amount. For you THRONEUM fans I hope you appreciate a fresh perspective from a newcomer to the band. This was a unique experience full of twists and turns and the band manages to keep the mild repetition from nothing me too much, so good job on that. I guess I think this album could use some more polishing in some aspects, but for the sound and style the band was aiming for, they definitely got there. I would love for a more atmospheric, doomy album from them next time, they certainly have the chops to do it.