(We welcome French metal writer Zoltar to NCS, and he makes his debut here with the following introductory review of a new album by Thorium which we’re premiering in full today in advance of its September 20 release by Emanzipation Productions.)
Thorium is an interesting beast. Not exactly just another side-project nor a full band per se, they do rear their ugly head whenever their leader and main man Michael Andersen of Withering Surface fame feels like it. And as it turns out, looks like lately, the man does really feel like playing good old and no frills death metal. And it shows.
In a way, The Bastard isn’t just some kind of reaction against the few years and painful gestation of the last Withering Surface – although that did play a small role, but I digress. It’s first and foremost the 49-year-old Andersen‘s love letter to the classic sound he was raised upon back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when a less confident and juvenile, yet already passionate, version of himself started dabbling in the underground through tape-trading and his own Emanzipation ‘zine.
Early reports of an album meant to originally be titled Sverige (that’s ‘Swedish’ for you in, erm, Swedish actually) proved at first to be a tad misleading as suggesting a sound firmly stuck in the early ’90s Stockholm style of Entombed, Grave, and so on. Then again, whereas there’s barely any fuzzy outpouring of the famed HM-2 pedal to be found here nor any D-beat parts and though it was ultimately retitled, it still somehow makes sense.
But so does its new title, The Bastard, as these ten songs are, indeed, a good mix of all things Swedish, albeit with a strong melodic sense and rooted in the ’90s.
“Nightside Serenade” feels like Amon Amarth covering Dissection with the kind of instantly catchy chorus to die for, whereas “Pest” has the stubbornness and straight-froward mentality of latter-day Centinex.
This being said, it doesn’t prevent them from getting out of their comfort zone and looking at Formulas Fatal To The Flesh-era Morbid Angel for inspiration for “The Underground”, including those kind of ‘chanting leads’ that Trey Azagthoth is famed for.
This short trip unto Floridian swamps aside, you can’t help but overall think about Paganizer mainman Rogga Johansson‘s vast body of work, especially his more melodic leaning alter-egos like Eye Of Purgatory or Dead Sun. And for a good reason: tired of waiting for his Danish colleagues to come up with new material, Andersen asked Johansson (with some help from Swedish drummer Thomas Ohlsson, with whom he had already collaborated on the last Stass album released through Andersen‘s own label) to write most the music for The Bastard.
I hear you, keeping in mind Mister Johansson spits out records like your cool uncle beering on a Friday night, this could have resulted in another run-of-the-mill and possibly forgettable piece of melodic SweDeath. But Rogga is never as good as when carefully stirred in the right direction, like a good actor directed by the right director.
So thanks to Andersen‘s clear vision of what they set out to achieve and its more than welcome concision, The Bastard is pure death metal delight: accessible yet uncompromised, melodic yet still brutal, entrenched in the classic sound yet peppered with some discreet keyboards layers and various vocal styles, from deep growls to piercing screams.
And while Johansson did all the rhythm guitars and most of the songwriting, ‘regular’ Thorium members, old and new, perform on the record. Both current guitar players José Cruz and Jens Peter Storm provide guitar solos whereas bass is handled by Jesper Nielsen, who joined back in 2018 (along with drummer Thomas Ohlsson), and former member and Puteraeon mainman Jonas Lindblood guests on two songs. It almost feels like a family affair. And it feels bloody good.
The Bastard not only succeeds in sounding as fresh as their recently-reissued 2000 debut Ocean Of Blasphemy. It’s a great, easily digestible, yet highly enjoyable nugget on its own, not designed to reinvent the wheel but to satisfy the hunger of whoever is into cookie monster vocals, catchy riffing, songs about war and blasphemy, and having a good time listening to good ol’ death metal.
The Bastard was mixed and mastered by Marco Angioni at Angioni Studios, and features artwork by Roberto Toderico. It will be released on CD, LP (black and red vinyl versions available, each limited to 200 copies), and digital on September 20th, via Emanzipation Productions.
PRE-ORDER:
https://thorium.bandcamp.com/album/the-bastard
THORIUM:
https://www.facebook.com/thoriumdeathmetal/
https://www.instagram.com/thoriummetal